[A/N: The style in this one is a little incoherent, but this is intentional due to the POV character.]
Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth watched intently as his technician, his single most loyal and appropriately deferential technician, guided the hovering stretcher down the steep steps of the hidden rocky passage. He followed close behind, closely enough that the little man had to scurry to stay out of his way. Despite a bad moment or two, he was able to keep it level, which was good. C'baoth would have had difficulty replacing him.
There was very little light in this passage. No matter: the Force was greater than sight. C'baoth smiled. The Grand Admiral thought that his ysalamiri tricks had darkened the entire mountain, that in sending him here the Grand Admiral had blinded him to his power. For all his studied intellect, the Grand Admiral knew nothing.
In his years on Wayland – too many to think back – C'baoth had gone into the mountain many times, for one reason or another. He had gone himself, a few times, especially when he had some cause to think of the Guardian he had killed. More often he had sent his people through it, and stripped what they had seen and found from their minds if they returned.
This passage his people had discovered wasn't on the schematics, the technical readouts the Grand Admiral and his entourage had been so insistent on seeing. Nonetheless, there were several like it, winding deep into the bowels of the mountain, too far down for that annoying ysalamiri field to cover. It didn't matter what they were for. This one had its origins in the Emperor's chambers, and so the Grand Admiral's petty order confining him to them was no more than a mild inconvenience.
The technician – his name was not important – pushed the stretcher and its occupant into the dark little room at the bottom of the stairs and stood aside for his Master, nothing but fear and reverence and obedience in his sense. It was exactly the right thing to do, and in exactly the right attitude, and as a reward C'baoth touched his great presence to the other's. The little man shivered, gasping.
In the darkness, so deep that the two tiny status lights on the stretcher seemed to stab the eye, Joruus C'baoth examined the being laid out before him.
It was a perfect clone of Luke Skywalker.
Almost perfect. The clone was still damp with growth matrix, which plastered his uncut hair to his forehead and neck and shoulders. He had never been exposed to the blazing suns and desert winds that lurked behind Luke's conscious thoughts, so his hair was darker, his skin paler and finer, as C'baoth had seen before they descended into this sanctuary. There was not a single scar on his body, not so much as the pit left by an umbilical cord.
And of course, he knew nothing but what the flash-teaching had given him – even less, in this case, then that of any of the other clones spawned by this facility. He knew only such absolute essentials as language, basic motor functions, how to feed himself, and hygiene. It would do the great Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth no good to have an apprentice whose every step had to be guided. Enjoyable though it might be, there would be no time in which to pursue other endeavors – and when he was gone, his apprentice would starve, leaving his work undone. That wouldn't do.
His new apprentice would be born not of a mother's womb, into her soft and coddling care, nor from a carefully regulated Spaarti cylinder into the ranks of an army. The apprentice had come from the latter, yes, but that was not where he would first become conscious. No, that would happen here, at his Master's order, into his Master's service.
It struck C'baoth as very efficient. He congratulated himself on having had this idea. In the darkness behind him, his technician smiled broadly.
The great Jedi Master leaned over the stretcher, and was glad of his triumph over that impudent little Jedi. Nothing would stop him this time – soon, nothing would stop them.
"Luke," C'baoth commanded. "Awaken."
There was a stirring from the stretcher. Luke had moved before, of course, even aside from that business on Jomark. In the cylinder he had kicked and twitched and writhed in slow motion like all of the others. He had frowned in his sleep when C'baoth's technician drained the contents of his cylinder, moved him to the stretcher, and drained the fluid from his lungs. On the way down here his closed eyes had moved as they went beyond the influence of the ysalamiri.
But this was different. Different, and entirely more exciting. Feeling a surge of pride and anticipation, C'baoth leaned forwards, the tip of his beard just brushing his apprentice's skin, and said almost gently, "Awaken. Your master has need of you, Luke."
He could not see Luke's eyes open, but he felt it in the Force as he heard his slow, even breathing pick up. Luke was confused, afraid.
And Joruus C'baoth was here to fit his mind into that confusion. He had all of the answers, the guidance his apprentice so badly needed, and sought to create a bond in the Force with which to provide them.
But, rather than letting his eyes drift closed, rather than accepting the wisdom of his Master-
Luke resisted.
It wasn't fighting. He had nothing like the resources he had on Jomark. Luke, this Luke, had not lived nineteen years in a desert, had had no schooling with that softheart Kenobi and sanctimonious, retiring Yoda; he had not had an additional eight years to become cemented in the ideas his teachers had planted in him, and no Mara Jade. No; Luke did not know how to fight. He did not know what fighting was.
It was a token effort, but there should have been none at all – and yet, impossibly, Luke resisted.
C'baoth slapped the resistance down with the barest shrug of his will and flooded furiously into every crevasse of Luke's mind; Luke struggled, but to no avail. He lay open, helpless as C'baoth surged past every fledgling barrier and found –
There was almost nothing there.
Only the merest fragments of memory. A dull sense of his life until now; time spent in the warm weightlessness of the Spaarti cylinder, drifting sometimes into a state of semiconsciousness. The precious novelty of the times his eyes had drifted open and an unfocused view had filtered into his incomplete brain, not yet analyzed and connected to the knowledge the flash-teachings had instilled in him.
He was young, Luke was. His body was that of an adult, but his mind, with such minimal teachings, was as unformed as an infant's. Something of the man who had gone from proper deference to stark defiance on Jomark was there, but without foundations.
Things were happening which Luke, floating all of his life in a tube, could not understand. His resistance was no act of disrespect. He did not know what disrespect was. He only resisted the change, as a babe being born might.
Maybe… Maybe C'baoth had just been going too quickly.
He pulled back and studied his charge in the Force. Yes. Though Luke was afraid, and had resisted, he had made no move to attack or flee. Or even to stand. He had never done either, before; the concepts existed, but he could not act them out, not yet.
This time, when C'baoth reached into him, he did it more slowly, more gently. Luke shuddered but lay still as his Master worked.
General Covell had been a modest effort. Practice, really. But he would have to take Luke out among the ysalamiri for as long as it took, and leave him ready to act. This required him to break down his apprentice's childlike mind as thoroughly as had been done to Covell, yes, but also to build something more elaborate in its place. Something that still respected him as was proper? Yes. Of course. But something that could operate without the touch of his mind or explicit directions, at least for a time.
It was easier. Luke's mind was largely unformed, without even the idea of resistance. But it was harder, as well, because Luke possessed a command of the Force and was therefore far more complex than any mere general. There was so much more to do!
As C'baoth worked, he planned. Clones. Cloning. This was important, though he couldn't remember why.
Memory was not important. Only the Force was.
By all means, he would make Luke submit, and Mara Jade, and they would apologize for their impertinance, grovel to him, beg for his forgiveness. Like a good Master, he would make certain that they had learned their lesson before taking them to his side, instructing them, smoothing away the parts of their minds that they wouldn't need. And they would help him, yes, they would bring him Leia Organa Solo and her children, and any others with a whisper of talent, and the Jedi would rise again, leading the fresh army now growing in the Spaarti cylinders. Strong enough that they would never be brought so low again!
But it seemed that this would not be enough Jedi. He would clone them, possibly himself – strange, uneasy idea. Maybe not himself – so that their ranks would swell, each shaped and fitted to C'baoth's own, perfect mind. It would be glorious!
How would he tell them apart?
Why would it matter? They would be loyal extensions of his will, carrying his work on after he was gone. They did not need their own names or anything to distinguish them from each other. The people of the galaxy would look to them as they would look to him, call them Master and mean it. C'baoth's eyes drifted half-closed as he worked, and dreamed, both at once.
It took hours before he was finished.
Luke lay quiet, accepting, unafraid. He rose smoothly when C'baoth commanded it, using the Force and what he had been gifted with to keep from wavering on raw new limbs. Standing for the first time was a trial, but he stood before his Master, and knelt at a thought.
"Give me your name," C'baoth commanded benevolently.
The clone's blue eyes met his, clear and empty and utterly perfect. His throat worked. "I'm - Luuke," he whispered, slurred with effort.
C'baoth smiled.