How many times had I led soldiers into conflict, knowing full well our only purpose would be to kill or perish, be the destroyers or the slain? How many battles had I witnessed firsthand, how many fallen men pierced by blaster fire or lightsabers, crushed by war machinery, or incinerated by mines and detonators? How often had I seen blood, carnage, bodies violated by the obscenity of murder, the gruesome aftermath of war? I couldn't count any of the above – I had seen a vast amount of death in my lifetime, even dealt it by my own hands. One might think I had become jaded to it, desensitized…
But somehow this was different. Why it was I could not fathom, but somehow the village we entered disturbed me, even though I had seen similar images a thousand times before.
The four of us stood at the head of the village's main street, as silent as if we had been gagged. All was still, and a grim weight seemed to hang in the air as if to crush the life from us. Every building was dark and abandoned, their doors gaping open like startled mouths. And the people… they were strewn through the street like as haphazardly as fallen leaves, some bearing the charred wounds of blasters, others stained scarlet from wounds inflicted by crueler weapons – vibroblades, force pikes, even clubs.
"What happened here?" Luke finally asked, his words sounding strangely frail in the heavy air.
"Empire," Jessa said bleakly. "Sure of it. Some poor guy managed to take out a few troopers at the speeder garage before…" She didn't finish, almost as if by not saying what had happened she could undo it.
"But why?" Luke demanded. "Why would they want to wipe out this place? It's not any military threat, and they haven't been involved with the Rebellion at all…"
"Unless they learned we were coming," I suggested, but the moment the words left my mouth I realized they couldn't be true. We had not contacted the village before coming, Jessa hadn't the means to betray us to the Empire, and the notion that Nightwind could do the same was ridiculous. The only reasonable explanation could be that the Imperials stationed on Corellia, realizing it was only a matter of time before the Rebellion routed them from the planet, had plundered the village for anything valuable before fleeing. One could only guess just how many other towns, cities, and settlements had met a similar fate.
I finally roused myself to activity, gesturing for the others to follow. "Search for survivors," I ordered, taking Nightwind's lead rope.
No one spoke as we wandered through the village, searching for any signs of life. I rather doubted that we would find anyone living, but some remaining fragment of decency would not let my mind rest until we had ascertained whether anyone had escaped the massacre.
Besides, the ring would not be still. It pulsed and burned, glowing with the same energy it had exhibited when we had encountered Jessa and Nightwind.
I forced my gaze away from the corpse of a child no older than ten, lying facedown in a pool of blood, his throat slit. I would not permit myself to think about other children, ones slain in a similar butcher, ones who died not by the gun or by the blade, but by the saber…
A tug at the lead. Nightwind had stopped to investigate the body of a middle-aged woman who had been shot in the head.
"Can I eat it?"
My gorge rose. "No."
"It's just going to go to waste…"
"No." Had my stomach been in proper working order I might have vomited at the thought. "If we find a dead animal, yes, but not a human."
"What about that?" he asked, reaching forward with a spike-like leg to nudge the corpse of a Rodian.
"No. I will tell you what's acceptable to eat." The last thing we needed was for the acklay to develop a taste for the flesh of any sentient creature.
He gave a hefty sigh through half-parted teeth. "Humans are strange."
I supposed, to Nightwind, our ways were bizarre. To us, there was something horrifying about the corpse of another human being devoured. But to an animal, a dead body only represented food, something to be consumed and converted to energy before it rotted.
The creature's next words startled me. "Humans fight and kill for no reason. Acklays kill to eat. Fight each other to lead the pack or to mate. But humans kill for sport, for fun, and they fight and kill each other for no reason. Very strange."
I could only stare at him. How could such a simple creature speak such a deep truth?
When I encountered Luke again, he was kneeling by the bodies of a man, a woman, and a child barely old enough to walk, checking for signs of life. The man had been shot several times in the back, the child twice in the chest. It was the woman who had suffered the worst abuse – her bruised skin and torn clothing were brutal evidence of how the Imperials had used her before stabbing her to death. Bloody footprints patterned the ground around them, some the bootprints of stormtroopers, others Jessa's clawed prints from her earlier examination of the village.
Luke's face was a mask of shock and pain as he looked up. "They were… they would have helped us…"
I knelt and touched two fingers of my left hand to the man's neck. Even through the glove I should have been able to detect a pulse, but there was nothing there. As if to confirm his death, the ring grew cold on my hand.
"Please believe me, son," I told him. "I never condoned such actions as this when I served the Empire."
Luke reached over and adjusted the shredded ruins of the woman's blouse to restore her modesty. "There was a time when I would have thought you capable of anything. But now… now I can't believe my father could do this."
I closed my eyes against the pain. I already had committed such crimes, and hundreds of times over. Children had died at my hands, cities had been leveled at my command, entire worlds had lived in the grip of terror thanks to my actions…
The ring stabbed a warning. We could not stay. There was nothing for us here. No one had survived, and the Imperials had stolen everything that hadn't been bolted down. We couldn't even linger to bury the bodies – someone here might have sent a distress signal to the Alliance, and any moment now their forces might show up.
To reinforce the ring's alert, Nightwind lifted his muzzle high, tasting the air. "Someone comes. Humans, a pack of them."
"We must go," I told Luke, rising to my feet. "Rebel troops are on their way."
"Find Jessa," Luke ordered, standing. "We don't leave anyone behind…"
Like a character in a play running onstage on a predetermine cue, Jessa bolted from the doors of a small medical center and skidded to a halt beside us.
"Someone's alive in there!" she cried. "He's pretty badly hurt, though. I need someone to help me haul him out…"
"The Alliance is coming," Luke told her. "We have to leave now."
"Then we'll hurry. Get this guy and your dad away before the Rebels show up. There's a few stretchers left in the med center that the Imps didn't filch. If we can get him on one, Nightwind can carry…"
"We don't have time! The Alliance can help him…"
"No they won't."
"Of course they will."
"Not this guy?"
"Why, what's wrong with him?"
"Is the injured man an Imperial?" I asked.
"Nope, worse," she replied. "He's Boba Fett."
Boba Fett? What in the galaxy was Boba Fett doing here? And how had he gotten mixed up in all this anyhow?
The ring stabbed again, and this time the Force joined it in its warning. The troops were drawing nearer. Our time was short; we had to leave now. But even as it urged us on our way, the ring was burning with another warning – that Fett was badly wounded, in need of our assistance, and somehow we needed him as much as we needed Jessa and Nightwind.
"Stay with Nightwind," I told Luke, handing him the acklay's lead. "Jessa, lead me to Fett."
Break…
From the hills overlooking the village I could see, by light of a full moon, Alliance soldiers moving among the buildings, carrying bodies out of the streets, cleaning up after the Empire. Had I still possessed control of my lungs, I would have breathed a sigh of relief. We had vacated just in time.
I moved back into the forest. My concern was not for my safety – had I been alone, I probably would have turned myself in to atone for my crimes. But I could not, would not let Luke suffer for my sins. If he returned to the Alliance or was found by their troops, he faced charges for desertion and possibly treason. And if they learned his true lineage… there would be no telling their reaction if they discovered their greatest hero was Darth Vader's seed.
Back at our campsite, Fett lay strapped to a stretcher near the fire, still unconscious. Luke and Jessa had pulled him down from Nightwind's back and were busy unfastening the straps. As they peeled back the bindings, I could see dark, dried blood staining his clothing.
"What happened to him?" asked Luke.
"I found him under a flipped bed," Jessa replied. "Some of his injuries are from the attack, I guess, but it looks like he was hurt before."
"Maybe we should have a look," Luke suggested.
I knelt by the hunter's side and carefully removed his helmet, revealing a dark, scarred face blotched with horrible oozing sores.
"Oh, disgusting," groaned Nightwind.
"Nasty," Jessa winced. "Is he sick? And is it contagious?"
"The Pit of Carkoon," Luke replied, a light of understanding igniting in his eyes as he took the helmet from me. "During our rescue of Han, Fett fell into the Pit of Carkoon and was swallowed by the sarlaac. I don't know how he survived, but the sores must be from the sarlaac's stomach acids."
I began loosening and removing other pieces of Fett's armor now, exposing more weeping ulcers where skin and flesh had been eaten away. In some instances when I pulled his clothing back, the skin stuck to the fabric and peeled away with it. And as if the acid-induced injuries weren't enough, the flesh of his shoulder was black and crusted from a blaster shot, and blood still seeped from a shallow but long gash over his ribs.
"By the stars," I murmured. "How did he survive this long?"
"Jessa, stop staring," advised Luke.
"Nothing wrong with looking, is there?" she demanded. "Besides, if you ignore the sores he's pretty handsome, and he's got nice abs…"
"Jessa," I said warningly.
"All right, all right, don't get so touchy," she complained, slinking off behind our supply pile.
"I'll get a medpack," Luke offered.
"He needs a bacta tank," I replied. "There are too many wounds for a simple medpack to handle."
Luke considered, absently drumming his fingers on Fett's helmet. "What about the ring? Jessa said it had healing powers…"
"The ring is stuck on my hand," I reminded him. "I cannot remove it. And even if I could, how could we be certain Fett is worthy to wear it?"
"Then try just touching it to his injuries. See what happens."
I was skeptical, but all the same I touched the burn on his shoulder with my left hand, ensuring the ring made contact with the wound.
Gold and silver stars danced across my vision, and a burst of power flashed down my arm like an electric shock. I drew my hand back sharply, only to find the ring glowing weirdly. Within seconds the glow faded, though the ring remained warm. The flesh of Fett's shoulder, meanwhile, had been rejuvenated, dark unbroken skin replacing the charred tissues. Emboldened by this success, I next placed the ring against the gash over his ribs. The wound's edges drew together upon the contact. Over and over I touched the ring to his injuries until it shone like a nova and my vision was stained gold by the power I wielded.
At last I drew my hand away, exhausted, blinking furiously to clear the yellow film from my sight. The ring cooled and faded back to a nondescript ivory, though my arm still tingled from utilizing the power. As for Fett – his surface wounds had been healed, at least. If the acid had caused deeper injuries, I could not repair them yet.
Luke pulled a blanket over the hunter's body. "You can come out now, Jessa."
"You're all a bunch of prudes," she snorted, coming into view. "Gonna wake him up?"
I placed a hand – my right hand this time – on Fett's forehead, more as a focusing gesture than as an actual transfer of power through the limb. Through the Force I entered his dormant mind and drew him gently to consciousness. His features trembled in a slight grimace, and with a deep-throated groan he opened his eyes.
"The helmet…" he rasped.
"We had to remove it," Luke explained. "You had some pretty bad injuries…"
"Put it back on," he demanded, his voice hard even though it was rough with lingering pain. There was a note of desperation there, as if the helmet were vital to his survival.
Jessa moved swiftly, plucking the helmet from Luke's hands and sliding it over Fett's head. "There you go."
He released his breath in a deep sigh, then rolled his head to first one side, then the other. After taking in his surroundings, he leaned back with another groan. "Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader… the galaxy's most wanted men…" He laughed humorlessly. "Ten million credits sitting a meter away and I'm too crippled to bag the catch."
"Looks like we've got another tagalong," Jessa noted.
"C'mon, Jessa, he's in no shape to travel with us…" Luke began.
"Where else can he go?" I countered. "He has worked for the Empire for years. How do you think the Rebellion will treat him if they find him?" Then I caught myself. Why was I defending a bounty hunter, a member of one of the lowest of professions, a man who had slaughtered almost as many as I had?
The ring seemed to chuckle as if enjoying some private joke. Stars, how many strays was the mysterious chunk of horn going to saddle us with? First Jessa, then Nightwind, now Fett…
But how could we have not helped any of them? Jessa had been alone and friendless, wandering the cosmos as a hunted creature, wanting only to be restored to a body and returned to her homeworld. Nightwind had been a trapped orphan cub, despairing over the deaths of his parents and nestmates, longing for a master who would treat him with kindness. And Fett had been cruelly injured, close to death, and in desperate need of our aid. How could I have left any behind? Which was strange – a few weeks ago I would not have cared whether my own soldiers and officers lived or died. Yet somehow this ever-growing clutch of misfits had stirred my compassion for the first time in years.
Fett spoke up at last. "Take me to a decent but obscure med center and leave me. I have the money to pay for my treatment." He attempted to sit up, groaned again, and fell down.
"What's wrong with the masked one?" asked Nightwind. "Bad food? Bad meat causes stomach troubles…"
"Nothing he ate," I told him. "I suspect the sarlaac's stomach acids have caused some internal damage, perhaps even the beginning stages of some kind of cancer…"
"Who are you talking to?" Fett demanded.
Luke gave me a look that plainly said that, if Fett was going to be traveling with us, we would have to explain the ring. With some misgivings I related what Jessa had told me about the artifact, then paused to hear his reaction.
It was as I had expected – he did not believe a word of it. "You lie badly, Lord Vader."
"He's telling the truth," Luke replied. "He healed your wounds."
Fett gave another mirthless laugh. "Some healing."
"Even the ring has its limits," I told him, though I had to wonder. It had completely healed my arm; why did it not completely restore Fett to health? Then again, it hadn't completely restored my body either…
"The ring also has a mind of its own," Jessa pointed out. "It may have its reasons for not healing you fully."
"A ring that attaches itself to the bearer and gives him supernatural powers?" The hunter was oddly chatty tonight – pain did have an odd way of loosening its victim's tongues. "You are either mad or trying to delude me." He glared at Nightwind. "And how can a beast talk? It's a mindless, soulless killing machine, yet you all seem to treat it like an equal."
Nightwind looked up from gnawing a parasite of some kind from his carapace. "Tell the masked one that I don't give an orray's bob-tailed rump if he thinks I'm intelligent or not, but if he wants proof that you can talk to me, put me to the test."
I blinked, surprised. That was the longest and most complex sentence the acklay had managed to put together. I had to wonder how long it took his kind to reach full maturity.
"What'd he say?" Jessa asked.
"That he is willing for Fett to put him to the test," I translated. "Give him a task to peform."
"Right," Fett said confidently. "Tell it to look through my armor and fetch my jet pack, then set it in the crotch of that tree just at the edge of camp…" His voice quickly trailed off as, even before he could complete the sentence, Nightwind plucked the device from the pile, scuttled across the clearing, and set it gently within the cradling branches of the correct tree.
"Well," he acknowledged at length, "you have some kind of control over him. Though it could be the Force…" He groaned again.
"What were you doing on Corellia anyhow?" asked Luke.
I had never known Fett to be this talkative or open to anyone, but pain does strange things to one's mind. He confided in us that, after being knocked into the Pit of Carkoon by Han Solo, he had spent days in the beast's gut, acid leaking though his armor and searing his skin, wracked in both physical agony and mental torture as the sarlaac delved into his mind, seeking some perverse kind of entertainment. It had taken a great effort to finally kill the monster and claw his way up its gullet, upon which exhaustion and pain had taken their toll.
When he awoke, it was to find a somewhat lesser bounty hunter taking him to the out-of-the-way but fairly competent medical center of the village we had just vacated. It had been this novice hunter's hope that, in return for helping Fett recover, the elder hunter would take the younger under his wing as a protégé. That would never happen – the Empire had stormed the village, wounding Fett even more grievously before he could kill his attackers and crawl under an overturned bed to wait out the siege. Somewhere along the line, he had passed out again.
"I'll give you all a trial run," he said abruptly. "If this ring of yours is so powerful, may it lead me to a medical center and a complete cure."
"Very well," I replied. "You may join us."
The ring throbbed approval. I clenched my left fist. Why was the ring taking control of our lives? What destiny was it leading us to, and why?
Break……a witch screaming in rage and agony, her clothes and hair aflame, her body wracked with fatal pain even as she swooped down to deal death to her victims…
…I can see by your expressions that you have no real idea of what I mean when I say 'perils and dangers:' believe me, your imaginations cannot encompass the terrors you might have to face…
…a frightened but resolute maiden, tan and toughened by a thousand-mile journey, standing before a great council of dragons and bargaining for her love…
…when your new Master Dragon was in his first incarnation, I saved his life; I ask you now for the price of that life. Let him spend his man-life time with me…
…more images, more phrases, more faces… would these fragments of another's past never cease to torment me? I saw a black dragon, a blue dragon, a unicorn with a shattered horn, a wounded bird, a blinded warrior… I saw wizards, witches, castles, unimaginable beasts… oceans, rivers, flames, deserts, mountains…
Enough!
It was as if an invisible hand had swept aside the jumbled dream-pieces like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle. The chaos parted, and now all I saw was a figure in flowing silver, robes caught and flung about like banners in the wind, a slender hand extended toward me. She spoke but one word:
Come.
I wanted to scream. Come where? Where was she? Who was she? What did she possess that I so desperately needed? The ring… even in my sleep it burned as if trying to sear through the glove and fuse itself to my flesh…
You have completed the prophecy, my young one, but your journey has only begun. Find the other two, and then you will find me. Hurry, for all your fates depend on it.
I awoke with a start. Had it all been a dream?
Break…
Fett insisted on walking along with everyone else, though every half hour he was forced to sit and regain his strength. He was in poor health indeed. Even if we found the most state-of-the-art medical center – and if they would admit him – I highly doubted he would ever again be completely healthy. At the very best, he would be able to live a comfortable, if less active life – and certainly not the life of a bounty hunter.
The visions still tumbled around in my mind, unwilling to rest. At last I confided in Luke and Jessa, Luke because I felt I could trust him with anything, Jessa because if these visions stemmed from the ring, she might know something about them.
"I don't know anything about someone in robes," she replied. "As for the rest… she said two more." She tapped the bottom of her faceplate with a clawed finger. "Seven is a powerfully magic number in most mythology. And in all the books, the wearer of the ring traveled in a group of seven. She must have been referring to the two other members of our group, wherever they may be."
"So I was the first," I realized. "Luke was the second, you the first, Nightwind the fourth, and Fett the fifth."
"The question is who the sixth and seventh are, and where we can find them," Luke mused.
Before anything else could be said, two things interrupted our conversation – the ring's knifelike pain and Nightwind's scream.
"Smell something!"
"What is it?" I asked.
"Blood, smoke, ozone!" His head swung wildly from side to side with terror, making Fett pull his blaster for fear the beast would break his lead and charge. "Humans, fighting, burned flesh, churned-up earth, sweat, fear, death…"
"Ensign Expendable to the rescue," Jessa piped up, and before we could stop her she had sidled up the nearest tree for a look at what lay ahead.
We didn't have long to wait. Her head poked out of the foliage like a weirdly shaped fruit.
"Big rumble up ahead. Imperial troops and civilians from the look of it. Not safe to go on in this direction, we'd better turn around."
"Are you sure it's not Rebels?" asked Luke.
"Positive. Maybe getting a little payback for yesterday's slaughter… look out!"
A white-armored form crashed through the undergrowth, one hand waving a pistol with reckless abandon, the other hand clutching a deep wound in the stomach. The stormtrooper fell to his knees at my feet, moaning in agony.
The ring stabbed again, but this time it was no warning.
This was the sixth.
