The Force Unleashed (16 page)

A glimpse of a black-robed figure standing with the stormtroopers stopped him in his

tracks. On sight of him, it tilted its black helmet and ignited a red lightsaber.

The stormtroopers dropped to their knees and fired.

For the barest of moments, the apprentice was frozen. His stomach dropped away into

Bespin's glorious skyscape, and he felt betrayed all over again.

Then his mind caught up with his gut, shouting, That's not Vader! The red blade

protruded from the top of a long black staff, not a lightsaber hilt. The helmet was

smooth and rounded, lacking the familiar death's-head aesthetic of his Master's.

Instead of two rounded photoreceptors, this helm boasted a single strip visor,

suggesting that beneath might lie the face of an ordinary human mall rather than

whatever blasted visage his Master kept permanently hidden. The figure wore combat

armor under his flowing cloak exactly like one of the Emperor's Royal Guard, but

entirely in black.

The apprentice's blade came up of its own accord. Moving in extreme slow motion, as

though the air were made of treacle, hi deflected volley after volley from the

blasters back at the troopers who fired them. They staggered and fell with smoke

pouring from shoulder and neck joints. Their cries barely registered.

The black guard deflected every bolt he sent his way. When the last of the troopers

fell, the black guard stepped forward with his saber-staff lowered to charge.

"Stay away from the dock!" the apprentice warned both Juno and Kota. "We need

another rendezvous point!"

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"There's a shipping balloon dock not far from you," Juno re sponded as his

lightsaber clashed with his new enemy's. "What's that noise? You're not fighting

Kota, are you?"

"Too hard to explain," he grunted, not sure what the explanation even was. "Get to

the balloon dock and wait for me there."

He broke off communications to block a downward slash that almost knocked him flat.

Glancing around for Kota, he was relieved to see that the general was nowhere

nearby. Now he could summon the full power of the dark side. Drawing on the sense of

betrayal and shock he had felt on seeing the figure waiting for him-this deadly,

dark assassin who might or might not have something to do with Darth Vader-he pushed

with all his might.

His ears rang, such was the energy he released. The dock buckled underneath him;

rivets popped and welds tore. His assailant went flying across the wide space, arms

spread wide apart. The saber-staff cut a long, twisting line in the metal floor as

its owner rolled and came up standing.

A bolt of Sith lightning shot from the hand not holding the staff. The apprentice

grinned, having anticipated that tactic. He met the lightning bolt with one of his

own. They collided in a spit-ling, >. tackling ball of pure energy that danced

crazily from side to side. The air filled with the sharp stink of ozone.

I he hooded assassin grunted and applied more effort. The apprentice met that effort

and exceeded it. The ease with which he drove his assailant's lightning back

surprised him. For one wielding a Sith blade, the man he was fighting had less power

than he should have.

The ball of energy where their crackling bolts met drifted I loser and closer to the

black guard. He grunted audibly and leaned physically forward with both hands

upraised, one in a shaking claw and the other stabbing the saber-staff into the

beam, adding its energy to his desperate attack. To no avail. The ball inexorably

approached, driven by the dark power of the apprentice's will. When it touched the

hilt of the black guard's saber-staff, all its pent-up energy was drawn into him.

With a truncated shriek the guard flew out the open dock and Buttered away, dead

before his feet even left the ground.

The apprentice let the tension flood out of him and brought his arms down. Comming

Juno, he followed the directions she gave him to their new rendezvous. It wasn't

far, with only a couple of obvious ambush points along the way. Thanking her, he ran

through an observation deck and along an exterior crosswalk, barely noticing the

view. His mind worked over everything that had just happened, trying to find the

sense in it.

A dark figure wielding a modified red blade and lightning, a Royal Guard but black

all over . . . The Sith connection could not be denied. Unless Darth Vader had

trained a second apprentice in the last six months-which didn't strike him as

likely, for why would he then set them against each other?-there was only one other

possible Master for such a being.

The Emperor.

Great minds thought alike. The apprentice grimaced as he approached the first of the

likely ambush points, an air-conditioning heat exchange, where he would be forced to

traverse a wide but long duct and pass through a series of fans. Darth Vader had sun

his apprentice on a mission to find and kill the last of the Jedi. Perhaps the

Emperor had intended the same with his dark minion.

If so, he would be disappointed by the results. Kota may not have wielded a blade,

as he had on Nar Shaddaa, but the Emperor's emissary had died all the same. That

would send a deal threat to the Emperor, perfectly in line with Darth Vader's

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wishes.

Assuming Kota survived, of course. The apprentice could only hope that he was

heading to the balloon dock via a different route and wouldn't get himself killed

along the way . . .

A squad of troopers was waiting for him in the heat exchange, with three of the

mobile Uggernaughts. He made short work of them, neither rushing recklessly in nor

drawing the fight out, There was no point to be made here. They were simply

inconveniences.

He tossed the last of the Uggernaughts into the spinning blades of a fan four times

as tall as he was. It exploded in a ball of flame, almost taking out its twin

farther along the heat exchange. Out of the cloud of metal fragments leapt a second

of the Emperor's Sith assassins, saber-staff upraised. The apprentice met him with a

clash of sparks and lightning.

Sith against Sith, they fought backward and forward through the broad, metal-lined

space. This assassin was more proficient than the first, wiry and strong with a good

reach and penchant for telekinetically throwing items from inside the apprentice's

blind spot. He proved to be tough work until the apprentice wrenched the next giant

fan off its gimbals and sent it spinning through the air. The black guard seemed so

stunned by the sight of it that he didn't jump until it was too late. One spinning

blade took his right leg off at the knee. From then, the fight was over.

The apprentice left the dismembered black-clad body behind and hurried on his way,

through a maintenance area filled with nervous Ugnaughts and up a ramp to the

balloon dock.

Stepping out into the open air, he found himself facing another squad of troopers,

two more of the Emperor's assassins, and no less than six Uggernaughts. Two

transport balloons heavily weighted with supplies hung overhead, motors whirring to

keep them on station, presumably waiting to land. Kota was nowhere in he seen. The

apprentice bent his knees and adopted a fighting stance.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked his gathered foes.

The answer came in the form of blasterfire from the troopers, a barrage from the

Uggernaughts, and a combined charge from the two assassins. He whirled and leapt,

filling the air with reflected energy. All thought ceased; his connection to the

Force became deeper than it ever had been before. He moved with grace and pure

reflex, ducking under saber-staff blows, hurling troopers bodily at their Ugnaught

allies, tossing walkers off the dock, and even raining supplies from one of the

balloons above.

The crew of the balloon bailed out in a small speeder. Seeing it abandoned gave him

an idea. When his enemies regrouped for a second combined charge, he wrenched the

balloon physically downward from the sky, crashing its entire weight down on them

all-and then, when the petals of the explosion were at their peak, sweeping the

entire mess off the dock with one cathartic flexure of telekinesis.

He stood in a tiny dome of clear space, exhaling pure energy, as the circle of

burning debris rained down through Bespin's thin, cold air below. Triumph and

satisfaction filled him like pure helium, buoying him upward.

"How many were there?" asked a voice from behind him.

He turned to see Kota stumbling onto the dock. Although drunk, he was a sobering

presence. The empty eye sockets hidden behind his filthy bandage seemed to stare

right through the young man before him.

The apprentice straightened and lowered his lightsaber. He wondered if Kota was

about to berate him for causing so much death and mayhem. "I lost count," he

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confessed.

"Doesn't matter. There will be more. The Emperor's army is infinite."

The apprentice scowled. A telling-off he could handle. Indulgent despair was a

different thing entirely. "We have to go, General."

"It's a fool's errand. You'll be killed-or worse. And what will have changed?

Nothing."

The apprentice clicked the comlink for Juno's attention. "I'd rather die fighting

than drown in some cantina, old man. Are you with me or not?"

Kota took a step forward, stumbled, and looked momentarily lost. "Do you have a

name, boy?"

"No."

Again the apprentice felt as though he were being studied by eyes that no longer

existed. "Well, there's no denying your willingness to kill stormtroopers. I have a

contact in the Senate who might be able to use your lightsaber. Where's your ship?"

The apprentice smiled slightly as the Rogue Shadow rose up behind him, its repulsors

whining and ramp extending. Perfect timing, he thought. If only Kota could have seen

it. . .

With one hand in the old man's right armpit, he guided the first of his would-be

rebels into the ship.

THE FORMER GENERAL AND JEDI MASTER might have looked-and smelled-like a brain-dead

derelict, but Juno soon learned that, even in his much-reduced state, he possessed

resources she could only marvel at. First, he had survived a duel with Starkiller.

Second, he had somehow crossed halfway around the galaxy without the use of his

eyes. Third, he knew codes and ciphers she had no hope of slicing . . .

For an hour after their refueling stop at Cloud City, he had sat behind her in the

jump seat, tapping madly into a keyboard and lending rapid-fire messages to unknown

destinations. Every now and again she'd glanced back and tried to read

surreptitiously. All she saw on the screen, however, was gibberish; the sound coming

out of the earpiece she had loaned him, likewise. Whatever he was talking about, he

was keeping it very much to himself. "Can I help?" she'd finally asked him.

"No." He had leaned back into the seat and pushed the keyboard away. "It's done."

"You spoke to your friend?" Starkiller had asked, leaning in close from the

copilot's seat.

Kota neither confirmed nor denied anything, given the choice. "Our destination is

Kashyyyk," was all he had said.

"The Wookiee homeworld?" Juno had felt a sinking in her gut. "That's under Imperial

rule now, isn't it?"

Kota had nodded. "It'll be dangerous."

The old man had smiled at that, with no humor at all. "The en tire galaxy is

dangerous when you make an enemy of the Emperor." He had waved away any further

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questions. "Don't bother me now. I'm tired and I have a headache. You don't have any

Andoan ale aboard, by any chance?"

"No," said Starkiller with a tight expression.

"Then let me sleep. You owe me that much."

Reclining the seat, he had put his hands behind his head and almost immediately

begun to snore.

Starkiller had shrugged and told her that he was going back to the meditation

chamber to prepare for whatever would come next.

And now she sat with PROXY beside her in the copilot's seat, wondering how she could

prepare for something when she had no idea what it might be.

The warped perspectives of hyperspace slid rapidly by, simultaneously comforting and

disconcerting. Familiar it might be to look at, but that environment was one

explicitly hostile to human life. So was life on the run. Kota looked about as

reliable as a drowned Wookiee. He and his mysterious contact could be leading them

right into a trap. She and Starkiller had only just managed to scrape out of enough

already while scouring the galaxy for the wretched old man . . .

She told herself not to be so surly. They'd all been through a lot, and it wasn't as

if she had much choice. She had seen how Darth Vader rewarded loyalty. Returning to

the Empire now, with two fugitives in tow, would be the fastest way to see herself

shot. Her sleep was still disturbed by dreams of her long incarceration, in which

the fear and hope of the final bullet still resonated.