by James Luceno
Climber immediately stepped forward. “That would be me.”
“And us,” the rest of Ion Team announced in unison.
Vader stared down at the commandos. “You disobeyed a direct order from High Command.”
“The order made no sense at the time,” Climber answered for everyone. “We thought it might be a Separatist trick.”
“What you ‘thought’ has no bearing on this,” Vader said, pointing at Climber. “You are expected to follow orders.”
“And we follow any reasonable ones. Killing our own didn’t qualify.”
Vader continued to point his forefinger at Climber’s chest. “They weren’t your allies, squad leader. They were traitors, and you sided with them.”
Climber stood his ground. “Traitors how? Because a few of them tried to arrest Palpatine? I still don’t see how that warrants a death penalty for the lot of them.”
“I’ll be sure to notify the Emperor of your concerns,” Vader said.
“You do that.”
Shryne closed his mouth and swallowed hard. Jedi had tried to arrest Palpatine. The Republic now had an Emperor!
“Unfortunately,” Vader was saying, “you won’t be alive to learn of his response.”
In one swift motion he drew aside his cloak and pulled a lightsaber from his belt. Igniting with a snap-hiss, the hilt projected a crimson blade.
If Shryne had been confused earlier, he was now overwhelmed.
A Sith blade?
The four commandos fell back, raising their weapons.
“We’ll accept execution for our actions,” Climber said. “But not from some lapdog of the Emperor.”
Quickly Salvo and his officers stepped forward, but Vader only showed them the palm of his hand. “No, Commander. Leave this to me.”
With that he moved on the commandos.
Spreading out, they fired, but not a single bolt made it past Vader’s blade. Deflected bolts went straight through the helmet visors of two of the commandos, and in two furious sweeps Vader opened the pair from shoulder to hip, as if they were flimsy ration containers. Climber and the third commando took advantage of the moment to break for the nearby tree line, firing as they fled. A deflection shot from Vader caught Climber in the left leg, but the bolt didn’t so much as slow him down.
Vader tracked them, then motioned to his cadre of troopers. “I want them alive, Commander Appo.”
“Yes, Lord Vader.”
Appo’s shock troopers raced off in pursuit of the commandos. Not one of Salvo’s officers had fired a weapon, but now all of them were regarding Vader with vigilant uncertainty, their rifles half raised.
“Don’t let my weapon fool you,” Vader told them, as if reading their thoughts. “I am not a Jedi.”
From off to Shryne’s left, a familiar voice shouted. “But I am!”
Bol Chatak had unwound her headcloth, revealing her vestigial horns, and had ignited the lightsaber Shryne thought she’d had sense enough to ditch when they were captured.
Vader whirled, watching Chatak as she began to stalk him, prisoners and troopers alike giving her wide berth.
“So much the better that one of you survived,” he said, waving his lightsaber back and forth in front of him. “The commandos saved your life, and now you hope to save theirs, is that it?”
Chatak held her blue blade at shoulder height. “My only intent is to take you out of the hunt.”
Vader’s angled his blade to point toward the ground. “You won’t be the first Jedi I’ve killed.”
Their blades met with an explosion of light.
Fearing that the prisoners would use the distraction to scatter, Salvo’s men hurried in to form a cordon around them. Pressed in among everyone, Shryne lost sight of Chatak and Vader, but he could tell from the angry clashes of their blades that the duel was fast and furious. Momentarily immobilized, he allowed himself to be swept up in the surge of the crowd, so that he might be raised up over the heads of those in front of him.
For a moment he was.
Just long enough to glimpse Chatak, all grace and speed, working her way into her opponent’s space. Her moves were broad and circular, and the lightsaber seemed an extension of her. Vader, by contrast, was clumsy, and his strikes were mostly vertical. He was, however, a full head taller than Chatak and incredibly powerful. At various times his stances and techniques mimicked those of Ataro and Soresu, but Vader appeared to lack a style of his own, and executed his moves stiffly.
With a whirling motion Chatak got far enough inside Vader’s long reach to inflict a forearm wound. But Vader scarcely reacted to the hit, and instead of seeing cauterized flesh Shryne saw sparks and smoke fountain through Vader’s slashed glove.
Then he lost sight of them again.
Wedged into the crowd, he wondered if he could use the Force to call one of the trooper’s blaster rifles into his grip. At the same time he hoped that Starstone had abandoned her lightsaber at the landing platform, and wouldn’t attempt to join her Master against Vader.
We need to learn what happened to the Jedi, he tried to send to her. Our time for dealing with Vader will come. Be patient.
He wondered if he was right. Maybe he should attempt to reach Chatak, weapon or no. Maybe his life was meant to end here, on Murkhana.
He looked to the Force for guidance, and the Force restrained him.
A pained cry cut through the chaos, and the crowd of prisoners parted just long enough for Shryne to see Chatak down on her knees in front of Vader, her sword arm amputated at the elbow. Vader had simply beaten her into submission, and now, with a flick of his bloodshine blade, he decapitated her.
Sorrow lanced Shryne’s heart.
Unreadable behind his mask, Vader gazed down at Chatak’s slack body.
The clone troopers relaxed the cordon somewhat, allowing the prisoners to spread out. And the moment they did, Vader began to scan faces in the crowd.
There were techniques for concealing one’s Force abilities, and Shryne employed them. He also prepared for the possibility that he could be found out. But Vader’s black gaze moved right past him. Instead, it appeared to focus on Olee Starstone.
Vader took a step in her direction.
Now I have no choice, Shryne thought.
He was ready to lunge when a shock trooper called to Vader, reporting that the commandos had been captured. Vader stopped in his tracks, glancing in Starstone’s direction before turning to Salvo.
“Commander, see to it that the prisoners are loaded into the transport.” Again, Vader scanned the crowd. “A less accommodating dungeon awaits them on Agon Nine.”
Vader had no sooner turned his back to the prisoners than Shryne was in motion, edging, elbowing, shouldering his way through the crowd to Starstone, whose narrow shoulders heaved as she attempted to suppress her grief at her Master’s death. Realizing Shryne was at her side, she turned into his comforting but brief embrace.
“Your Master is with the Force,” he told her. “Rejoice for that.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why didn’t you help her?”
“I thought we’d agreed to abandon our lightsabers.”
She nodded. “I abandoned mine. But you could have done something.”
“You’re right. Maybe I should have challenged ‘Lord Vader’ to a fistfight.” Shryne’s nostrils flared. “Your Master reacted in anger and in vengeance. She would have been more use to us alive.”
Starstone reacted as if she had been slapped. “That’s a heartless remark.”
“Don’t confuse emotion with truth. Even if Bol Chatak had defeated Vader, she would have been killed.”
Starstone gestured vaguely in Vader’s direction. “But that monster would be dead.”
Shryne held her accusing gaze. “Vengeance isn’t becoming in a Jedi, Padawan. Your Master died for nothing.”
The prisoners were on the move now, troopers herding them toward the boarding ramp of the military transport.
“Fall back,”
Shryne said into Starstone’s ear.
The two of them slowed down, allowing other captives to maneuver around them.
“Who is Vader?” Starstone asked after a moment.
Shryne shook his head in ignorance. “That’s something we might be able to learn if we can remain alive.”
Starstone took her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry about what I said, Master.”
“Don’t worry about that. Tell me how Bol Chatak was able to keep the lightsaber hidden from the guards.”
“Force persuasion,” Starstone said quietly. “At first we thought we might be able to escape, but my Master wanted to wait until she knew what had happened to you. We were locked away in a building and left to fend for ourselves. Very little food, and troopers everywhere. Even if my Master had used her lightsaber then, I don’t know how far we would have gotten before troopers were all over us.”
“Did you use Force persuasion at any time?”
She nodded. “That’s how I was able to hold on to my Master’s beacon transceiver.”
Shryne eyed her in surprise. “You have it with you?”
“Master Chatak told me to keep it.”
“Foolish,” he said, then asked: “Were you able to learn anything about the war?”
“Nothing.” Starstone let her misgiving show. “Did you hear Vader say that he would tell the ‘Emperor’?”
“I heard him.”
“Could the Senate have named Palpatine Emperor?”
“Seems like something the Senate would do.”
“But Emperor of what Empire?”
“I’ve been asking myself that.” He glanced at her. “I think the war has ended.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Then why were the troopers ordered to kill us?”
“Jedi on Coruscant may have attempted to arrest Palpatine before he was promoted—or crowned, I suppose I should say.”
“That’s why we were ordered into hiding.”
“Good theory—for a change.”
They were closing on the lip of the boarding ramp now, almost at the end of the line. Accepting of the inevitable, most of the prisoners were demonstrating remarkable discipline, and many of the troopers were drifting away as a result. Two troopers were stationed at the top of the ramp, one to either side of the rectangular hatch, and three more were moving more or less alongside the two Jedi.
“Vader is a Sith, Master,” Starstone said.
Shryne showed her a long-suffering look. “What do you know of the Sith?”
“Before Master Chatak chose me as her Padawan, I trained under Master Jocasta Nu in the Temple archives. For my review, I elected to be tested in Sith history.”
“Congratulations. Then I don’t need to remind you that a crimson blade doesn’t guarantee that the wielder is a Sith, any more than every person strong in the Force is a Jedi. Asajj Ventress was a mere apprentice to Dooku, not a true Sith. A crimson blade can owe to nothing more than a synthetic power crystal. Then crimson is simply a color, like Master Windu’s amethyst blade.”
“Yes, but Jedi normally don’t wield crimson blades,” Starstone argued, “if only because of their association with the Sith. So even if Vader was nothing more than another apprentice of Count Dooku, why is he now serving Palpatine—Emperor Palpatine—as an executioner?”
“You’re assuming too much,” Shryne said. “Even if you’re right, why is that so hard to believe, when Dooku did just the opposite—went from serving the Jedi order to serving the Sith?”
Starstone shook her head. “I suppose it shouldn’t be hard to believe, Master. But it is.”
He looked at her. “Here is what matters: Vader suspects that two Jedi are going to be aboard the prison transport. Eventually he’ll identify us and we’ll be killed, unless we take our chances, here and now.”
“How, Master?”
“Drop back with me to the end of the line. I’m going to try something, and I hope the Force is with me. If I fail, we board as instructed. Understood?”
“Understood.”
The last of the captive mercenaries and Koorivar moved past the two reluctant Jedi, up the ship’s ramp and through the hatch. At the top Shryne made a passing motion with his hand to one of the troopers.
“There’s no reason to detain us,” he said.
The trooper gazed at him from inside the helmet. “There’s no reason to detain them,” he told his comrades.
“We’re free to return to our homes.”
“They’re free to return to their homes.”
“Everything’s fine. It’s time for you to board the ship.”
“Everything’s fine. It’s time for us to board the ship.”
Shryne and Starstone waited until the final trooper had filed inside; then they leapt from the ramp onto the clay field and concealed themselves behind one of the landing gear pods.
When an opportunity presented itself, they hurried from beneath the ship and escaped into the thick vegetation, heading for what remained of Murkhana City.
In his personal quarters aboard the Exactor, Vader examined the damage the Zabrak Jedi’s lightsaber had done to his left forearm. After assuring himself that the pressure suit had self-sealed above the burn, he had peeled off the long glove and used a fine-point laser cutter to remove flaps of armorweave fabric that had been fused to the alloy beneath. The Jedi’s lightsaber had sliced through the shielding that bulked the glove and had melted some of the artificial ligaments that allowed the hand to pronate. Permanent repairs would have to wait until he returned to Coruscant. In the meantime he would have to entrust his arm to the care of one of the Star Destroyer’s med droids.
His own lightsaber rested within reach, but the longer he gazed at it, and at the blackened furrow in the alloy, the more disheartened he became. Had the hand been flesh and blood it would be shaking now. Only Dooku, Asajj Ventress, and Obi-Wan had been good enough with a blade to injure him, so how had an undistinguished Jedi Knight been able to do so?
With the loss of my limbs, have I also lost strength in the Force?
Vader recognized the voice of the one who posed the question as the specter of Anakin. Anakin telling him that he was not as powerful as he thought he was. The little slave boy, cowering because he was not the master of his fate. A mere accessory in the world, owned by another, passed over.
And now newly enslaved!
He lifted his masked face to the cabin’s ceiling and growled in torment. Sidious’s inept med droids had done this to him! Slowed his reflexes, burdened him with armor and padding. He relished having destroyed them.
Or … had Sidious deliberately engineered this prison?
Again, it was Anakin who asked, that small node of fear in Vader’s heart.
Was this punishment for having failed at Mustafar? Or had Mustafar merely provided Sidious with an excuse to weaken him? Perhaps all along the promise of apprenticeship had been nothing more than a ploy, when, in fact, Sidious merely needed someone to command his army of stormtroopers.
Another Grievous, while Sidious reaped the real rewards of power, confident that his newest minion posed no threat to his rule.
Vader dwelled on it, fearing he would drive himself mad, and at last reached an even more disheartening conclusion. Grievous was duped into serving the Sith. But Sidious had sent Anakin to Mustafar for one reason only: to kill the members of the Separatist Council.
Padmé and Obi-Wan were the ones who had sentenced him to his black-suit prison.
Sentenced by his wife and his alleged best friend, their love for him warped by what they had perceived as betrayal. Obi-Wan, too brainwashed by the Jedi to recognize the power of the dark side; and Padmé, too enslaved to the Republic to understand that Palpatine’s machinations and Anakin’s defection to the Sith had been essential to bringing peace to the galaxy! Essential to placing power in the hands of those resourceful enough to use it properly, in order to save the galaxy’s myriad species from themselves; to end the incompetence of the
Senate; to dissolve the bloated, entitled Jedi order, whose Masters were blind to the decay they had fostered.
And yet their Chosen One had seen it; so why hadn’t they followed his lead by embracing the dark side?
Because they were too set in their ways; too inflexible to adapt.
Vader mused.
Anakin Skywalker had died on Coruscant.
But the Chosen One had died on Mustafar.
Blistering rage, as seething as Mustafar’s lava flows, welled up in him, liquefying self-pity. This was what he saw behind the mask’s visual enhancers: bubbling lava, red heat, scorched flesh—
He had only wanted to save them! Padmé, from death; Obi-Wan, from ignorance. And in the end they had failed to recognize his power; to simply accede to him; to accept on faith that he knew what was best for them, for everyone!
Instead Padmé was dead and Obi-Wan was running for his life, as stripped of everything as Vader was. Without friends, family, purpose …
Clenching his right hand, he cursed the Force. What had it ever provided him but pain? Torturing him with foresight, with visions he was unable to prevent. Leading him to believe that he had great power when he was little more than its servant.
But no longer, Vader promised himself. The power of the dark side would render the Force subservient, minion rather than ally.
Extending his right arm, he took hold of the lightsaber and turned it about in his hand. Just three standard weeks old, assembled—as Sidious had wished—in the shadow of the moonlet-size terror weapon he was having constructed, it had now tasted first blood.
Sidious had provided the synthcrystal responsible for the crimson blade, along with his own lightsaber to serve as a model. Vader, though, had no fondness for antiques, and while he could appreciate the handiwork that had gone into fashioning the inlaid, gently curved hilt of Sidious’s lightsaber, he prefered a weapon with more ballast. Determined to please his Master, he had tried to create something novel, but had ended up fashioning a black version of the lightsaber he had wielded for more than a decade, with a thick, ridged handgrip, high-output diatium power cell, dual-phase focusing crystal, and forward-mounted adjustment knobs. Down to the beveled emitter shroud, the hilt mimicked Anakin’s.
