by Timothy Zahn
Dorja’s eyes met Pellaeon’s, his face tight with confusion. “Admiral, I’ve always trusted your word and your judgment,” he said. “But in this case …”
“There’s one other record of interest on this datacard,” Pellaeon said, looking back at Tierce. “Again, from the same source. It’s the record and life history of a certain Imperial Major Grodin Tierce.”
Slowly, Tierce turned back to face him. And this time there was no mistaking the murder in his eyes. “And what does that record say?” he asked softly.
“It says that Major Tierce was one of the finest combat stormtroopers ever to serve the Empire,” Pellaeon told him. “That his successes raised him to command rank far more quickly than even stormtrooper norm. That at the age of twenty-four he was selected to serve the Emperor as one of the elite Royal Guard. That his fierce loyalty to Palpatine’s New Order was second to none.”
Pellaeon lifted his eyebrows slightly. “And that, as part of a stormtrooper unit involved in Thrawn’s campaign against Generis, he died in combat.
“Ten years ago.”
Once again, the bridge went silent. But this time it wasn’t the silence of surprise. It was the silence of total shock.
“You’re a clone.” The words had come from Disra, but the voice was so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable. “You’re just a clone.”
Slowly, Tierce turned his venomous gaze from Pellaeon to Disra. And then, abruptly, he barked out a short, tortured-sounding laugh. “Just a clone,” he repeated mockingly. “Just a clone—is that what you said, Disra? Just a clone? You have no idea.”
He looked around the room. “None of you do. I wasn’t just a clone—I was something very special. Something special and glorious.”
“Why don’t you tell us what that was,” Pellaeon invited quietly.
Tierce spun back to face him. “I was the first of a new breed,” he bit out. “The first of what would have been a class of warlords the likes of which the galaxy had never seen. Warlords who combined stormtrooper combat strength and loyalty with Thrawn’s own tactical genius. We would have led, and we would have conquered, and no one could have stood against us.”
He turned around, his movements becoming almost jerky in his agitation. “Don’t you see?” he shouted, his eyes darting to each of the officers and crewers staring in fascination or revulsion at him. “Thrawn took Tierce and cloned him, but he put some of himself into the process. He added part of his own tactical genius to the usual flash-learning, combining it with Tierce’s own mind.”
He spun again to face Disra. “You’ve seen it, Disra. Whether you know it or not, you’ve seen it. I was manipulating you from the very start—don’t you see? It was me, right from the minute I maneuvered myself in as your aide. All those pirate attacks—the Preybird deals—that was me. All me. You never saw it—you never even guessed it—but I was the one making the quiet suggestions and feeding you the right data in the right order to get you to do what I wanted.
“And all the rest of you have seen it, too,” he shouted, spinning around again. “I’ve been running the tactics here. Not Flim—not that red-eyed figurehead. Me. It’s always been me. And I’m good at it—it’s what Thrawn made me to be. I can do this.”
His eyes seized on Disra again. “You talk about the Hand of Thrawn, his last ultimate weapon,” he said, his voice almost pleading. “I can be that Hand of Thrawn. I can be Thrawn himself. I can defeat the New Republic—I know it.”
“No, Major,” Pellaeon said. “The war is over.”
Tierce spun back to face him. “No,” he snarled. “It’s not over. Not yet. Not until we’ve crushed Coruscant. Not until we’ve had our vengeance against the Rebels.”
Pellaeon gazed at him, pity and revulsion swirling together within him. “You don’t understand at all,” he said sadly. “Thrawn was never interested in vengeance. His goal was order, and stability, and the strength that comes of unity and common purpose.”
“And how would you know what Thrawn was interested in?” Tierce sneered. “Do you have part of his mind inside you? Well? Do you?”
Pellaeon sighed. “You say you were the first of these new warlords. Do you know why there weren’t any others?”
Tierce’s eyes seemed to withdraw within him. “He ran out of time,” he said. “He died at Bilbringi. You let him die at Bilbringi.”
“No.” Pellaeon lifted the datacard slightly. “You were created two months before his death—there was plenty of time for him to have made others. The fact is that there weren’t any others because the experiment was a failure.”
“Impossible,” Tierce breathed. “I wasn’t a failure. Look at me—look at me. I’m exactly what he wanted.”
Pellaeon shook his head. “What he wanted was a tactically brilliant leader,” he said gently. “What he got was a tactically brilliant stormtrooper. You’re not a leader, Major. By your own statement you’re nothing but a manipulator. You have no vision, only a thirst for revenge.”
Tierce’s eyes darted around the bridge, as if looking for support. “That doesn’t matter,” he ground out. “What matters is that I can do the job. I can defeat the Rebels. Just give me a little more time.”
“There is no more time,” Pellaeon said with quiet finality. “The war is over.” He looked over at Ardiff. “Captain Ardiff, please call a security detachment to the bridge.” He started to turn away—
And in that instant, Tierce exploded into action.
The young woman standing beside him was his first victim, doubling over in agony as Tierce swung his fist viciously down and back into her stomach. In the same motion he plucked away the blaster that had suddenly appeared in her hand, twisting around to fire a shot at the older woman as the younger collapsed to the deck. He twisted back, bringing the blaster to bear on Pellaeon. There was a flicker of movement at the corner of Pellaeon’s eye—
And Tierce jerked back, screaming in rage and pain as his gun hand was slapped to the side, the shot going wide, the blaster itself flying uselessly from his grip to skitter across the deck and down into the starboard crew pit.
And from concealment around the side of the archway behind Pellaeon, gliding silently across the deck, came Shada D’ukal.
Tierce didn’t even bother to pull out the lacquered zenji needle now waving bloodily from the back of his gun hand. Screaming incoherently, he hooked his fingers into predator’s claws and charged.
Reflexively, Pellaeon took a step backward. But he needn’t have bothered. Shada was already there, meeting Tierce halfway.
And in a blurred flurry of hands and arms, it was all over.
“Captain Dorja, call a medical team to the bridge,” Pellaeon ordered as Shada stepped over Tierce’s broken body and hurried over to kneel beside the injured woman. “Then order all Imperial forces to cease fire immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” Dorja said hesitantly. “However …”
Flim lifted a blue-skinned hand. “What he’s trying to find words to say, Admiral, is that they’ll expect any such order to come from Grand Admiral Thrawn,” he said. His voice had changed, subtly but noticeably; and as Pellaeon glanced around the bridge, he saw that they finally recognized the truth. “If you’ll permit me?”
Pellaeon gestured. “Go ahead.”
Flim turned to the comm officer and nodded. “This is Grand Admiral Thrawn,” he called, once again in that exquisitely perfect voice. “All units, cease fire; repeat, cease fire. General Bel Iblis, please call on your forces to do likewise, then stand by for a transmission from Admiral Pellaeon.”
He took a deep breath and let it out; and as he did so, the aura of leadership and command subtly fell away from him. He was just a man again, a man in blue makeup and a white uniform.
And Grand Admiral Thrawn was once again gone.
“And may I say to you, Admiral,” he added as he walked back along the command walkway, “how relieved I am that you’re here. This whole thing has been a nightmare for me. An absolute nightmare.”
“Of course,” Pellaeon said gravely. “We’ll have to make time later for you to tell me your tale of woe.”
Flim half bowed. “I’ll look forward to that, sir.”
“Yes,” Pellaeon said, looking over at Disra. “So will I.”
CHAPTER
42
The loud gushing sound had subsided now to a quiet sloshing as the water continued to creep its slow but steady way up the sides of the room. A sloshing sound that was being rhythmically punctuated by the splashing of chunks of rock as Luke’s lightsaber carved a deepening conical pit into the top of the dome.
“I think you’re wasting your time,” Mara said as the splash from a particularly large chunk echoed through the room. “There’s nothing up there but solid rock.”
“I think you’re right,” Luke conceded, shifting his arm to a new spot around her shoulders and trying to hold her a little closer. Soaked clear through, they were both shivering in the cool, damp air. “I was hoping we might be able to punch through to the main power generator area. But I guess if we haven’t hit it by now, it’s not there.”
“It’s probably twenty meters behind us,” she said, her teeth chattering slightly. “We’d never be able to cut through to it in time. Are your ears starting to hurt?”
“A little,” Luke said, reluctantly closing down his lightsaber and calling it back to his hand. Cutting through the ceiling had been his last, best idea. “The air in here’s being compressed. The extra pressure should help slow down the incoming water a little.”
“Along with making our eyes go all buggy.” Mara nodded toward the far wall. “You suppose there’s any chance the top of the room’s above the level of the lake? If it is, we might be able to cut our way out horizontally.”
“And if it isn’t, we’d drown ourselves that much sooner,” Luke pointed out. “Anyway, I really don’t think we’re high enough.”
“I didn’t think so, either,” Mara agreed regretfully, leaning forward to look past Luke at Artoo. “Too bad we lost the datapad—we could have asked Artoo to take some sensor readings. We could still ask, of course, but we couldn’t understand the answer.”
“Wait a minute,” Luke said, another idea suddenly hitting him. “What about that passageway where we first came in? We could send Artoo there with my lightsaber to enlarge it.”
“No good.” Mara shook her head, the movement sending strands of wet hair slapping gently across Luke’s cheek. “That whole section is solid cortosis ore. I checked it the first time we went through.”
Luke grimaced. “I thought it sounded too easy.”
“Isn’t it always,” Mara said, the faint sarcasm sounding odd coming as it did through chattering teeth. “Too bad we don’t have a Dark Jedi handy we could kill. Remember that big blast when C’baoth died?”
“Yes,” Luke said mechanically, staring off into space. The insane Jedi clone Joruus C’baoth, recruited to fight against the New Republic by Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Thrawn. Clone …
“Mara, you told me cortosis ore wasn’t structurally very strong. Just how weak is it?”
“It was flaking off under our boots as we walked through the passage,” she said, throwing him a puzzled look. “Other than that, I haven’t the faintest idea. Why?”
Luke nodded at the vast pool below them. “We’ve got a lot of water here, and water isn’t compressible the way air is. If we could create a hard enough jolt here in this room, the pressure wave should travel all the way down the tunnel to the passageway. If it’s powerful enough, maybe we can collapse that whole area.”
“Sounds great,” Mara agreed. “Just one problem: how exactly do we engineer this massive jolt of yours?”
Luke braced himself. “We cut through that transparisteel barrier and flood the cloning alcove.”
“Oh, my stars,” Mara murmured; and even through his mental exhaustion Luke could feel her ripple of stunned apprehension. “Luke, that’s a Braxxon-Fipps 590 fusion generator in there. You dump water on that and you’re going to have more jolt than you know what to do with.”
“I know it’s risky,” Luke said. “But I think it’s our only chance.” Letting go of his grip on her, wincing as his wet clothing shifted against his skin, he stood up. “Wait here; I’ll be right back.”
She sighed. “No,” she said, standing up beside him and taking hold of his arm. “I’ll do it.”
“Like blazes you will,” Luke growled. “It’s my crazy idea. I’ll do it.”
“Okay,” she said, crossing her arms. “Tell me how you do a Paparak cross-cut.”
He blinked. “A what?”
“A Paparak cross-cut” she repeated. “It’s a technique for weakening a stressed wall so that it comes down a minute or so after you’re safely out of the vicinity. Palpatine taught it to me as part of my sabotage training.”
“Okay,” Luke said. “So give me a fast course.”
“What, like a fast course in becoming a Jedi?” she countered scornfully. “It’s not that easy.”
“Mara—”
“Besides,” she added quietly, “when whichever of us goes down pops up again, the other one’s going to have to get them back up here out of the way of the blast. I don’t think I can lift you that far that fast.” Her lips pressed briefly together. “And frankly, I don’t want to sit here and watch myself fail.”
Luke glared at her. But she was right, and they both knew it. “This is blackmail, you know.”
“This is common sense,” she corrected him. “The right person for the job, remember?” She smiled faintly. “Or do you need another lecture on that topic?”
“Spare me,” he said with a sigh, running his fingertips across her cheek. “All right, I’ll lift you over there. Be careful, okay?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking a deep breath and pulling her lightsaber from her belt. “Ready.”
Stretching out to the Force, he lifted her over the railing and across the room to the transparisteel wall. Her mind touched his, her thoughts indicating she was ready, and he lowered her into the water. She took a few more deep breaths, then bent at the waist and ducked her head beneath the surface. A single vertical kick of her legs, and she was gone.
Across the ledge, Artoo moaned nervously. “She’ll be all right,” Luke assured him, gripping the top rail as he stared anxiously at the choppy water. He could feel Mara’s thoughts as she maneuvered her way back and forth across the wall, making short, deliberate cuts with her lightsaber. Stretching out harder, he could sense the change in flow against her skin as the water began to seep through the cracks.
And if the water level rose high enough in there to reach the generator before she was finished …
“Come on, Mara, come on,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s good enough—let’s go.”
He felt her negative thought; the wall wasn’t yet shredded to her satisfaction. Luke pressed back his impatience and fear, the faces of Callista and Gaeriel hovering before him. Only a week ago he’d told himself firmly that he could never permit himself to love Mara, that such a closeness and commitment from him would inevitably put her in danger.
And now he’d reneged on that determination. And sure enough, like all the others, his actions or inactions had put her in deadly danger. He felt a flicker in her emotions, mixing with the fear and dread rising chokingly from within him—
And suddenly her head breached the surface. “Got it,” she gasped.
He had her moving before the second word was even out of her mouth, pulling her toward him with all the speed he could manage. He flipped her over the railing and lowered her flat on her stomach on the ledge, stretching himself protectively down on top of her as she landed. “How soon?” he asked, reaching out to the Force to try to create a low-level shield that could provide at least a minimal barrier against the impending explosion.
“Could be anytime,” Mara answered, her voice muffled by the rock wall she was facing. “And by the way, just for future ref
erence, don’t you ever not care for someone just because you’re afraid they might get hurt in the process. Especially not me. You got that?”
Luke grimaced in embarrassment. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.” Behind him, he heard the sudden crack and surging of water as the transparisteel wall collapsed—
And with a brilliant flash he could see even with his eyes squeezed shut, the generator blew up.
The sound of the blast itself was almost muffled; but the roar of the wave that slammed over them more than made up for it. The water surged and roiled all around them, effortlessly picking them up and slamming them back and forth between the wall, the ledge, and the railing. Luke held grimly on to Mara, wishing belatedly he’d thought to tie Artoo down somehow.
And then, as suddenly as it had struck, the swirling water fell away, leaving them bruised and drenched but otherwise unharmed. Shaking the water out of his eyes, Luke pushed himself up on one arm and looked out into the chamber.
And caught his breath. Only one of the room’s glow panels had survived the explosion; but by its dim light he could see that the water level was rapidly going down. “Mara—look. It worked.”
“I’ll be Kesseled,” she said, spitting out some water. “Now what? We jump in and follow the flow?”
Luke leaned over the railing, trying to see the exit tunnel. If it wasn’t still full to the ceiling …
But it was. “It’s not quite that simple,” he told Mara. “The flow should carry us back into the caverns, all right, but there’s still the matter of getting through the tunnel and underground room.”
“Why don’t we just wait until the level goes down far enough?”
“We can’t,” Luke said. “I don’t know why.”
“Jedi hunch,” Mara said. “Then we’re back to hibernation trances. How fast can you put me in one?”
“Pretty fast,” he told her. “Take a few deep breaths, and tell me what phrase you want me to use to snap you out of it.”
