Chapter 6 – Unlikely Heroes, Unlikely Villains
Vader's worst fears were realized when they entered the building – Fett was at the hub of the action, surrounded by cheering, wildly gesturing fanatics, a Darth Maul impersonator holding a knife to his chest. So the young man had been correct. Fett's identity had been uncovered. The situation had become very delicate.
Nick passed a note to the others. /Try to keep a low profile. Pretend you're members./
/That will do little good/ Vader wrote in reply. /If we are to rescue him, we must take action now./
/That would be insane! They think the Empire is coming to glorify them and make them true Sith! To you, you're practically their Second Coming, their Armageddon! If you tell them who you are, they'll go absolutely nuts/
/Then perhaps the ensuing chaos will enable us to escape more easily/ he replied via clipboard.
Nick just stared at Vader as if he'd gone crazy.
"Draw your saber, Luke," Vader whispered. "We'll fight together."
Luke grinned and pulled the weapon from his belt. "Ready to fight side by side for a change, Father?"
He smiled behind his mask as he lifted his lightsaber. "I've known this day would come. I just never thought these would be the circumstances."
A man in Sith robes with black-and-white hair raised both hands, and the crowd went silent.
"Boba Fett, choose now," he boomed. "Join us, and learn the glory of the dark side… or perish."
Fett raised one hand in a gesture the Vader's Elite had described to Luke and Vader as the ultimate insult to Stargeeks – the Trekkie symbol. "Chaos take your blasted Sons of the Sith."
"Oooh, he's asking for a painful death," snarled someone in the crowd.
"Shut up, Polowski," snapped the ringleader. "He has spirit. I admire that in a foe. Thus, he will be granted the privilege of dying at my hand."
"I think not," Vader replied loud enough for all to hear, and he ignited his saber.
The snap-hiss of the weapon snuffed out all other sound like a gust of wind extinguishing a candle. All eyes locked on the Dark Lord, and expressions of awe crossed every face.
Almost. The Sons of the Sith leader gave Vader a look of inexplicable hatred.
"Master," breathed a Vader impersonator, dropping to his knees. "A true Dark Lord at last."
"My lord," murmured a young woman in Mara Jade attire, following her comrade's example.
"Get up the two of you," snarled the leader. "Polowski, Hainsworth, you're making fools of yourselves."
"Darth Quinzain, it's as you prophesied!" protested the Darth Maul impersonator, his knife never leaving Fett's heart. "The Empire has come to honor us!"
/Quinzain/ Why did that name seem familiar all of a sudden? He searched his memory. He had yet to meet anyone on Earth with the name of Quinzain…
"My dear Darth Ramirez, wasn't it you who bragged to me last week that you had seen 'Return of the Jedi' no less than fifty-seven times?" Quinzain inquired.
"Yes, why?"
"Then how is it," he demanded, his features twisting into a hateful grimace, "that you do not recall the treason that Darth Vader inflicted upon the Order?" He pointed an accusatory finger at Vader. "This man slaughtered the mightiest Sith in the galaxy and betrayed the Order! He promised his loyalty to the dark side, and then he turned around and spit in its face! He is no true Sith! He is a traitor!" A sudden change came over his features, and he gave a smooth, chilling smile. "And we all know what must be done with traitors to the Order."
/Oh, Sithspawn/ Vader thought. What had seemed a good idea at the time had just backfired completely. He hadn't seen the final movie; how was he to know that it would end with his turning on the Empire?
"Boss!" came a shout from the back of the room. "We've got something that might interest you!"
"Let me go, you freaks of nature!" screamed an angry voice that was all too familiar to Vader.
Two men, one in Imperial Royal Guard attire, the other dressed as a sort of dark-sider Tusken, were forcibly dragging in Trapper, who was kicking and swinging and generally making things difficult for his captors. Behind them came a woman in black leather, carrying a bleary-eyed, puzzled Rachel.
/No/ he thought desperately. /Not the children…/
"Ah, and you brought more guests," Quinzain purred. "Apprentices of yours?" He arched an eyebrow. "Or perhaps not; training children hasn't exactly been your style in the literature, has it? Still, they might make excellent additions to the Sith Order… we could use the young blood…"
"Over my dead body," Luke hissed, igniting his saber.
Quinzain's eyes widened slightly, then he threw his head back and cackled maniacally.
"Luke Skywalker!" he cried exultantly. "Following in his father's footsteps! Oh, this is almost too good to be true!"
The Sons of the Sith closed in to surround them. Luke, Vader, and Fett suddenly found themselves at the center of the room, closed in on all sides by hard-eyed dark-side extremists.
"Obviously, you've come to rescue your comrade," Quinzain noted, gesturing toward Fett. "So let's make this simple – a trade. Life for life, blood for blood. Fett and your own lives for the children."
Vader didn't even stop to consider. "No."
Quinzain smiled mockingly. "Ah, the iron heart has softened. You've become compassionate, weak, allowing your defenses to crumble and fall." He leaned forward slightly. "The boy and girl are of no consequence to the Empire, Vader. Give them to me. Escape with your own life and the lives of your greatest servants. It is the only way."
"You will take no lives today," Vader snarled. "Not mine, not the children's, not Luke or Fett's. Your life is mine."
"Oh no, Vader. It is your life that will be mine today."
"You think yourself a match for a true Force-user?" Vader demanded, raising his saber in a battle stance.
"I'm the greatest Force-user that ever lived!" cried Quinzain. "Even more so than you!"
And lighting – honest-to-goodness blue Force lightining – sprang from his fingers and streaked forward, just barely blocked by a stunned Vader's lightsaber.
/He's a Jedi/ Vader thought, startled.
"What the stang?" gaped Luke.
Quinzain lowered his hands, still wearing that purely evil smile. "You three were not the first, you know. There were others. Granted, they suffered horrible fates – imprisoned as criminals, institutionalized as psychotics, hanged and burned as witches. Only I…" He gestured at himself. "…was able to integrate myself among the people here to survive. Only I was wise enough to remain in the shadows and observe, until at last I could pass myself off as one of them… until the time was right."
At last Vader realized where he'd heard the name before. "Jedi Padawan Quinzain. You were an apprentice of Dooku's."
"Yes, Lord Vader. Dooku was my Master. He trained me shortly after Qui-gon Jinn was Knighted. And today his death shall be avenged." He raised his voice. "Men, kill Skywalker and Fett! But Vader is mine!"
The crowd surged forward to take on the others. Luke raised his saber as a shield to deflect the staccato gunfire that thudded toward him, the plasmatic blade incinerating the bullets before they could contact him. Fett, meanwhile, grabbed Darth Ramirez's arm in a teras kasi grip and snapped his wrist before driving him to the ground with a well-placed foot in the gut. Even unarmed, Fett was not one to be trifled with.
Before he could see anything else, Quinzain ignited his own weapon, a yellow-bladed weapon that cast his features in a sickly light.
"We are the Sith now, Vader," Quinzain snarled. "And once we've crafted our lightsabers, we will be invincible. Earth is only a base – our vision encompasses all known space! But first, we must abolish the traitor to the Order."
Vader lunged, and their blades met with a sizzling crack. Quinzain was mad – brilliant but insane, his mind irrevocably twisted by the dark side. And he would drag dozens of people down into madness with him if left unchecked… and eventually lead a deadly force far more destructive than the simple annoyance of a small-town gang. He had to destroy the man, and quickly.
Break…
After felling Ramirez, Fett's next goal was to find where his weapons were. He felt absolutely naked without his blaster at his side. Ducking the frenzied but clumsy lunge of a robed Palpatine imposter, he quickly scanned the crowd.
There! The red-and-black stormtrooper was digging through his pack, no doubt in search of a suitable weapon of her own. He snatched the pack from her hands, but not before she'd yanked a blaster free and started firing on him. Dropping to the floor to dodge her fire, he kicked her legs out from under her and grabbed the gun as it fell from her grasp.
She wasn't done yet. Before he could pull the bag out of her reach she'd plunged her hand in, questing for another weapon. Her fingers closed around something, but before either of them could identify it another member of the Sons slammed into them, sending the item flying from her grasp.
It was his flamethrower.
/Oh, stang it all/ he thought as the weapon sailed across the room and landed in the fireplace, centimeters from the glowing flames.
"Back away!" he shouted. "It's going to blow!"
Too late. With a dull thud the flamethrower's fuel ignited and detonated, sending fire billowing from the fireplace and up the walls. Within seconds the wall of the lodge was burning fast.
"Now look what you've done!" the woman exclaimed in dismay, and she ran for the exit.
Fett threw the knapsack over one shoulder and looked around for the others. This place was going up in smoke fast. If they didn't get out of here shortly…
Polowski charged him, a knife held high, a scream of rage tearing from his throat. Fett bent low and caught the man in the stomach, using his own momentum to flip him and send him smashing into the folding table. It collapsed under Polowski's weight, sending him, winded and moaning, to the rotting floor.
"Boba!"
Fett whirled. Trapper was in the clutches of Ramirez, who had a pistol jammed under the boy's chin and was glowering at Fett with a sly expression.
"It would be so easy," he said smoothly. "A twitch of the finger. You should know, bounty hunter…"
"Don't you dare," Fett snarled, raising his blaster.
"If you don't put the gun down, I WILL dare…"
From the rafters of the lodge came a hideous yowl, and a mass of gray-tan fur and claws landed on Ramirez's shaved-bald scalp, latching on with a crazed fury.
/Oh, NOW I find the stupid animal/ Fett thought exasperatedly.
The Sith wannabe howled and threw both arms up to knock the creature down, and his gun fired harmlessly at the ceiling. Trapper staggered free of his grip and bolted for the door.
Fett strode easily toward Ramirez, plucked the cat from his head, and thunked him solidly in the back of the skull with the butt of his blaster rifle.
"Sweet dreams," he wished the man before hauling a still-spitting Vincent out.
Break…
Vader and Quinzain had been closest to the fireplace, so they were the first to feel the explosion of heat that almost knocked them to their knees. In less than thirty seconds the wooden wall of the lodge, tinder-dry from the recent heat wave and considerable age, became a curtain of flame. The fighting broke up as Sons of the Sith poured out of the lodge, gasping for air.
Quinzain hacked at Vader's defenses, sweat pouring down his face, his expression crazed with blood lust. He was out of practice, Vader realized. It had been years since he'd last raised a saber against a foe, and it showed in his jerky movements and clumsy footwork. He had an advantage here, and it would not take much for him to overpower the man and deal a death blow…
But a piercing scream tore through his thoughts.
The fighters' eyes turned to the source of the sound – Rachel. The reality of where she was and what was happening had finally sunk in, and she was petrified with fright.
Quinzain's expression became radiant with malevolent glee. Before Vader could react, a blast of electricity to the chest knocked him to the ground. The floorboards beneath him groaned and cracked ominously with the impact.
Rachel screamed again. Dazed from the attack, he raised his head to see Quinzain's hand gripping her arm, his saber poised to strike…
The expression on her face – a terror so pure and overwhelming it consumed all other thought – seared through his mind, touching another memory of another life…
…of a boy's expression of absolute trust giving way to horror as a saber ignited in Vader's palm… of the frightened whimpers and tears of the younglings that had emerged hesitantly from hiding, only to face a greater horror… of innocence brutally cut short with a single, deadly blow…
/No! Not Rachel! Not her too! No/
A blast of something powerful, of an indescribable energy – of light! – coursed through his limbs, and in a single fluid movement he was on his feet and at Rachel's side, one arm encircling her, shielding her from what was to come… and the other arm gesturing toward the flaming ceiling just over Quinzain's head.
The fallen Jedi gave a scream of rage and agony as the blazing beams collapsed upon him, scorching robes and skin, crushing and burning. Smoke and sizzling vapors ballooned outward, enveloping Vader and Rachel, and his lungs spasmed at the contact. Choking on the tainted air, he lifted Rachel to his shoulder and ran for the exit.
Rachel clung to him, hiding her face in the crook between neck and shoulder. "He was a bad guy, wasn't he? Like the Emperor?"
Vader was coughing too hard to reply. Falling to his knees, he struggled to regain his breath.
"C'mon, Father!" Luke exclaimed, taking Rachel from his arms and pulling him to the door. "This place is going to collapse any second!"
Vader dragged himself to his feet and staggered toward the door, his head spinning from lack of oxygen. All around them cinders danced, guns went off as the battle continued in fits and spurts outside, flames crackled all around… just as they had in Rachel's vision.
The warm summer air outside the lodge felt blessedly cool to them as they emerged from the fire… but they didn't get much time to enjoy it. For no less then eight police cruisers and two fire engines were now surrounding the lodge, and more emergency vehicles were arriving.
"Hands up!" an officer barked, leveling his pistol at Luke, Vader, and Fett.
"Do as he says," Luke advised, setting Rachel down. "Or he'll think we're Sons of the Sith."
Vader complied, though he was still coughing and struggling for breath. Fett grumbled but raised his arms, one hand still clutching the cat by the scruff of the neck.
"We're in big trouble, aren't we?" asked Rachel with her usual forthrightness.
At the moment, Vader was past caring. All that mattered now was that they had survived… and that he had, in some small way, atoned for his grievous crimes at the Jedi Temple. In saving Rachel from a similar fate, perhaps he had finally healed that old wound. It still didn't totally rectify the situation, of course, but then, nothing ever totally could.
"I believe," Fett said dryly, "that this has just become my least favorite planet in the galaxy."
Break…
Austin knew something was wrong the moment he entered the house. For one thing, the hide-a-bed was still folded away inside the couch. For another thing, someone had left the TV on, and the evening news was still filling the darkened living room with bluish light. And there was that odd sense that something else was going on, something he couldn't quite put his finger on…
"Austin Powers!"
He whirled. Conrad and Diana Church had just stormed in through his front door, still in their best clothing from their dinner tonight. Diana seemed frazzled, but Conrad looked fit to kill.
"Where's Rachel?" Conrad demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Austin replied. "I haven't been home all day."
"Then what about this?" Conrad said angrily, thrusting a note at him. "Vader said he was taking Rachel to stay with you while he took care of some 'business…'"
Austin's stomach lurched. Was it possible that Vader had found a way to leave the planet… and had elected to take Rachel with him as a new apprentice?
The phone rang. He sighed. Why did everything have to happen at once?
"We'll get to the bottom of this," Austin assured them, picking up the receiver. "Yes?"
"Any sign of Fett?"
"Excuse me?"
"Boba Fett!" Jason exclaimed. "Luke and Vader said they were gonna look for Boba Fett! We wanted to know if they'd found them yet…"
Diana screamed.
"What is…" began Austin, then his gaze fell on the TV screen. "Oh, son of a… Jason, channel four now!"
A breaking news story was being broadcast – a live shot of the Star City Historic Lodge going up in flames. Police cars, ambulances, and fire engines surrounded the building, making the entire scene flash eerily. Dozens of costumed men and women were being handcuffed, searched, and treated for injuries… and was that his son in the thick of them, exchanging heated words with a police officer?
"Rachel!" shouted Conrad. Sure enough, his daughter was seated on the hood of a police cruiser, holding Mori and looking for all the world as if she were watching an engrossing TV show.
"Three guesses where our intergalactic buddies are," Jason said in a long-suffering tone.
"Everyone get in the van now!" Conrad ordered.