For a brief and beautiful moment, it had looked like they'd be able to evacuate the Furnace, Vader included, before the Imperials reached the base. Then the battle shifted. Juno didn't need the Force to know that hopes were in a free-fall; she could see despair swell in the eyes of every soldier on Shenandor Prime, and she tried to put on a brave mask as she rallied them to defend.

Plans to swiftly move Vader to Rogue Shadow had been scuttled. He remained locked in his vault while the area around the three hangar bays were piled with troops and weapons. The main corridor leading from hangars to mining shaft was blocked with as many barricades as the Rebel soldiers could throw up, from armored crates to chunks of disused mining equipment. Juno stayed with the troops at the hangars. There were three separate bays, each sealed from the planet's airless exterior by massive metals doors, each holding a different ship. There was no telling where the Imperials would try to insert themselves, but they had to come through one of those three doors.

She received updates from Commander Yast, who was in the sensor station off the main corridor. He gave her a blow-by-blow of everything, including reports from the shield-ship's skeleton crew, who were frantically trying to repair their inexplicably damaged thrusters. Yast also reported when the Imperial freighter came into view, and when it came near to landing.

"It's not like any Imp ship I've ever seen," he reported over her comlink. "Looks cobbled together. Some kind of special shielding to get through the heat."

"Well, they couldn't send just any ship through the blaze," Juno reasoned. "Can you get a size reading?"

"Trying now." Under his breath Yast added, "I wish to hell we had exterior weapons. Or shields."

Juno tried for optimism. "We've got plenty weapons inside."

Yast wasn't buying it. "You're supposed to keep the enemy outside the gate. You'd think a star would be good enough… Okay, I'm getting dimensions. It's about twice again the size of your ship."

"So they'll go for the center hangar."

"It's the only one that'll fit. They'll have to either cut or blow through the door to get in."

"Is that possible?"

"Anything's possible with the right weapon."

"Fair enough." She'd seen Starkiller prove that many times. "If the doors blow, do you have energy screens to keep in atmosphere?"

"Yes. Won't be so good against the heat, though."

"Air is all we'll need. Stand by."

Juno killed the link and began barking orders to the soldiers in the hangar foyer. As they stormed into the central bay, some took positions behind cover in the corners, while others rushed into the parked Ghtroc freighter in hopes of turning its dorsal laser turret against the Imperials when they blew or cut through the massive portal in the ceiling. Juno chose to stay outside so as to get a better view of the fight, even though she knew that once that portal blew she'd be dodging hell.

Not for the first time, she was going to have to depend on Starkiller to watch her back.

As she crouched behind a crate near the entrance, she switched her comm to his frequency and called, "This is Juno. Get up to the central hangar. We're going to need you."

But there was no reply. She'd left him in the main corridor, working with the troops to set up barricades. Where was he?

"This is Juno," she repeated. "They'll start breaking through any minute. We all need you. Get up here."

There was no response, and with a sinking, awful feeling Juno knew where he must be.

She was about to rise and go running back to the vault on the far end of the base, but an awful screeching sounded above. She looked up at the still-sealed doors and watched them tremble, assailed from the outside.

At that moment, mounting dread turned her speechless. Someone else shouted, "Heads up! They're comin' through!" Rifle-barrels were already swung toward the ceiling. The pounding got louder and louder. Nobody looked away, not even Juno.

There was nothing she could do except make her stand and pray the man she loved was worth her trust.

-{}-

The Rebels needed every available soldier to defend the base. They were packed in the main hallway, around the hangars. They had more weapons than bodies to use them. Everyone was prepared for frenzied, close-quarters combat except the droid mechanic Krevkee, who was tucked away in his lab and working on PROXY with a single-minded devotion those deaf to the Force would have misread as obliviousness.

Everyone was ready to fight, but somebody needed to guard Vader. The four men posted outside his vault were of better use by the hangar. Starkiller had convinced them of such and told them he'd stand guard outside the door. Though reluctant, they'd scampered off to help their comrades.

It was the best use of manpower. Starkiller was, after all, most fit to guard the Sith Lord. The other soldiers should have guns pointed at the enemy. They had limited resources; they couldn't afford to waste four men where one might do the job. It was reasonable.

But ultimately Starkiller knew he'd come here because he needed to. Not wanted, needed.

As soon as the guards were away, he unlocked the door to the vault and stepped inside.

Vader was as he'd left him: a black statue, bound and caged, pressed against the far wall, body turned to the door, eyeless ebon mask staring.

And breathing, always breathing. That inhuman mechanical rasp.

There was no other sound.

Starkiller felt acutely conscious of his two lightsabers, both tucked into their sealed pouch at his hip. He'd left Vader's with PROXY, perhaps because he'd known, deep down, that he'd have to come to this room, have to look Vader in the eyeless eyes, and had not wanted to dangle the Sith Lord's weapon within his black reach.

Then a voice crackled over his comm: "This is Juno. Get up to the central hangar. We're going to need you."

Her words jarred him back to his senses. Juno needed his help; he belonged out there, protecting her, not ensconced in this vault with his nemesis.

Starkiller forced himself to turn away from Vader and made two steps toward the door.

Then the voice behind him: "Do you want to know what you are?"

He knew he should keep walking, but his limbs froze. He stood meters from the door, not even daring to look back, listening to the rise and fall of Vader's breath, wondering if he'd imagined those words.

But the Sith Lord said: "If you leave now, you will never understand the truth."

Starkiller felt rage rise within him. He clenched both hands. On his comm Juno pleaded, "They'll start breaking through any minute. We all need you. Get up here."

But he couldn't leave. Slowly, painfully, wondering if this was fated all along, Starkiller turned back to his maker, half-expecting to see Vader sprung free of his cage. But the Sith Lord remained as he had been, a black statue bound against the back wall. Staring at him with eyeless eyes.

"Why?" Starkiller growled. "Why should I believe you? Everything you've done to me—all you've said—all your lies!" He couldn't help himself. He staggered closer. "Why would you tell the truth now?"

"To hurt you," Vader said.

"What?"

"Truth cuts deeper than any blade."

Starkiller almost reached for his lightsabers right there. He growled, "What truth?"

He stared. Vader breathed. Starkiller felt a mounting dread, perhaps in the Force, perhaps inside him.

The Dark Lord said, "You are nothing more than a defective toy."

He'd been insulted and abused by his Master since he was a child. Starkiller snorted, "Is that all you've got?"

"You are not Galen Marek, son of Kento Marek. You are a copy."

"You told me that back on Kamino. Don't you have any new lines?"

"The man who died on the Death Star was also a clone."

Starkiller's chest filled with cold. He'd wondered. He'd suspected.

But Vader always lied. He shook his head furiously. "You killed him on Executor, then, and everything I remember since has been a clone? Clones?"

After a long, drawn moment: "Yes."

It explained so much, like how he'd woken up with no wounds or scars. But he said, "I don't believe you. When you woke me, when I came back on Empirical, you didn't say anything about being a clone. And you can't clone Jedi. It's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible for the Emperor."

He snarled and tried to find a rebuke. At the time he'd believed that he was being trained by Vader in secret to be his partner in overthrowing the Emperor. It had all seemed so real; Vader had even plunged Empirical into a sun to erase his secret laboratory, killing hundreds of crewmen.

But lives meant nothing to Vader and the Emperor. It had all been part of a deception master and apprentice had concocted together. He'd only even been a pawn.

The Sith Lord continued, "The Emperor craves immortality. He seeks to pass his own soul from body to cloned body so he might rule the Empire forever. Galen Marek was his experiment. His test subject."

"I thought my job was to gather up the Emperor's enemies for him."

"The Emperor," Vader said, "is most efficient."

Starkiller was terrified. He defended himself with a bitter laugh. "Then it failed, didn't it? Ever since I woke up on Kamino I've been confused. Implanted memories from another man… I don't know what's real…" His lip curled to a scowl. "Assuming this isn't another lie."

"You are not Galen Marek, nor are you the Emperor's test subject."

"What do you mean?"

"You are mine."

His hands twitched; palms ached for his lightsabers. "If you mean something than say it!"

"The Emperor knew nothing about my cloning chamber on Kamino… and thanks to you, he never will."

Starkiller stared, enraptured, as pieces fell into place.

His maker said, "You are, at last, what Galen Marek believed he was from the start. My secret apprentice."

-{}-

The thick doors above the hangar were meant to withstand Shenandor Prime's natural travails. They slowed the Imperial attack, but could not stop them.

As she watched and waited behind a tripod-mounted E-web cannon, tilted back to aim at the ceiling, Juno tried to figure out how the Imps were breaking through. She couldn't discern if they were using a cutting torch or just pounding the door apart with laser blasts. They were coming through either way, and she tried to guess how much debris would fall when then doors came down, and who might be damaged.

In the end, she was surprised. The doors exploded inexplicable outward; even though the energy shield at the hangar mouth kept its atmosphere inside, the shattered molten chunks of armor were swept outward into space. As soon as they were gone, the ugly, boxy freighter began to lower itself through the now-open portal.

Juno's response was simple. To all soldiers, she commanded attack.

Her E-web was one of four, each mounted at a different corner of the rectangular hangar. Their heavy bolts were matched by small-arms fire, as well as blasts from the dorsal turret of the bulky ovoid Ghtroc freighter taking up the center of the landing zone. The Imperial intruder- though the ship was clearly not Imperial make- hovered in the entry portal, absorbing frenzied laser blasts into its belly shields, as though it was deciding where to land. With the Ghtroc freighter in the way there was simply no room, and Juno wondered if it might even try another hangar to deploy in. Tough luck there; they were too small, and each had a ship besides.

In the end, the Imps decided to make it brutal. Their freighter didn't have any ventral gun turrets to clear the hangar, and their shields wouldn't last forever, so they ultimately elected to simply lower their landing gear and drop. The ship crunched down hard on the Ghtroc, crushing its laser turret instantly. Four legs clawed into the Ghtroc's topside and the freighter's collapsed downward under the weight of the Imperial ship.

Dimly, Juno felt glad she hadn't gotten in the Ghtroc's turret. Instead she was outside the crushed ship, alive and shouting orders to keep firing.

The Imperials had to shut down their shields to land, which meant their ugly, insulated hull quickly became pocked by small- and medium-arms fire. It occurred to Juno that this freighter was the only way off Shenandor Prime without a shieldship and she tried to shout to her people over the comms, telling them to hold fire until the Imps deployed their commando teams, but the noise was lost in the clamor of dozens of blasters.

Then the landing ramp swung down, clattering on the Ghtroc's crumpled roof, and things really got ugly.

A wave of stormtroopers came out first. They'd come prepared for hard entry, and those in the lead hoisted portable energy shields to deflect the hail of laserfire that greeted them. Even a direct hit from Juno's E-web merely staggered the stormtrooper who took it. She directed Rebels in the opposite corners of the room to try and take the stormies from behind, and a few white-armored bodies took shots to the back and fell clattering off the roof of the freighter.

But the Imperials just kept coming. Dozens of storm-troopers, at least a platoon's worth, spilled from the freighter. Most of them leaped brazenly off the back of the Ghtroc, and they were most vulnerable at landing. Juno herself blasted through two with one shot from her E-web. But they were still coming, and she was shocked when a set of troopers on jetpacks rose from some unseen dorsal hatch in the freighter and began peppered fire on the Rebels below. In an instant they gunned down the crew behind the two E-webs and felled a sniper at Juno's right.

She snarled, remembering how much trouble these jetpack stormies had given Starkiller, and did her best to shoot them down.

The jetpack soldiers were bad but ultimately a distraction. While the Rebels flooded laserfire toward the ceiling, more stormtroopers poured from the freighter and jumped down to the deck. Though at least a dozen white shells now littered the floor, the Imps kept coming.

They weren't going to hold them to the hangar. Dodging behind a crate, ducking fire from above, Juno got on her comm and called Commander Yast. "We have to fall back!" she hollered. "Are you ready in the hallway?"

"They won't get past us," the Nautolan replied, though his voice was far from assured.

On Juno's command, the remaining Rebel soldiers made a rush for the hall. She stayed at her E-web, peppering fire at the stormtroopers, trying to delay their advance as long as possible. When nearly everyone else had fallen back to the main corridor she sprinted for the exit, body low, wildly casting rifle-fire behind her.

She dared look back right before she reached the door, but an angular black capsule, standing like a vertical coffin, was being lowered on repulsors to the deck.

She saw it only briefly and had no time to ponder it. Juno threw herself through the door, which slammed shut behind her. Whatever that thing was, she'd find out soon enough.

-{}-

When Starkiller found words, they were bitter on his tongue. "If I'm your secret project, then it failed."

"You have performed exactly as I hoped." Darth Vader was still encaged, but he seemed to grow taller and more powerful as he spoke. "You are a slave to your emotions, and the woman you think you love. The woman you were designed to love, for as long as she lives, I will control you."

"Shut up!"

"You betray yourself. Just as you have betrayed her. It is you who have revealed the location of this Rebel base, just as I designed you to."

Since the star destroyer found them, Starkiller had fought off the horrifying suspicion that he was the one who'd led it here. "You're lying."

"The time for lies is past. You were allowed to escape Kamino and rejoin your supposed friends. With your woman as bait I lured you back to the cloning facility so you might erase it from existence—and the Emperor's vision. You have done exactly as I desired."

"I never meant to-"

"What you mean is irrelevant. All that matters is what you are." Vader seemed to loom even higher. "My apprentice. My puppet. My tool."

"Stop it!" Starkiller's scream scraped his throat.

"By allowed you to capture me I had hoped to find the Rebels' main base… Perhaps you denied me that, but I will destroy it soon enough, and all the pathetic leaders gather by Galen Mark's other defective clone."

He groped for argument; for sanity. "Am I your apprentice? Or am I a broken toy? Stop lying and make up your mind!"

"You are my secret apprentice," Darth Vader said with hideous calm, "but you are not my only one."

-{}-

The Furnace's main trunk corridor was the closest approximation of hell Juno had ever seen. Just hours ago that long, straight tunnel had seemed comfortably broad. Now it was packed with barricades and bodies, and the air was alight plasma bolts. Every time she peeked her head above the crate she used for shelter, she risked having it blown off. The air smelled of ozone and scorched flesh as soldier after soldier fell. The Rebels were pinned to their positions behind their barriers; attempting to fall back was guaranteed death. So they held until they were overrun, and then they died anyway.

This wasn't a battle, Juno thought. This was a slaughter-house.

Curled forehead-to-knees behind her barrier halfway down the hall, she held her comlink close and said, "Commander, sitrep!"

She just barely heard Yast over the blasterfire. "They're past the third set," he reported.

From the hangar to the mining shaft, there were eight sets of doors branching off from the corridor. That meant the Imperials were almost halfway down.

"Are any more coming through?"

"No," Yast said. "I think they emptied the whole hangar!"

Then it was time to spring their trap. A meager trap, but better than nothing. She thought to ask, "What about that coffin? Did you see it?"

"A what?"

"Never mind. Stand by. I'm calling PROXY." She switched frequencies on her comlink and asked, "PROXY, do you hear me?"

"I do hear you, Master."

"Are you in position?"

"Two of m-me are standing by."

She didn't know if she would ever get used to this. "Do it."

Nothing changed at first. The hallway was still full of laserfire crossing back and forth down the hall. Then she noticed a change in sound; more blasts coming from ahead rather than behind. Carefully, she risked a peek above the edge of her crate.

The far end of the hallway, the one packed with storm-troopers, was now alight with laser bolts. From her distance, through the battle's smoke, it was hard to see, but Juno knew their little trap was in action, and it was working.

Krevkee, resident droid programmer extraordinaire, had managed to patch rely nodes into the three cobbled-together PROXY droids so that they were in sync with the original, complete model. In effect, PROXY now controlled a trio of puppets who could summon holo-shrouds and disguise themselves just as he could.

Two of PROXY's bodies, including the main one, were safe in Krevkee's workshop at the far end of the base. It had been Juno's idea for the other two to don stormtrooper guises and insert themselves at the rear of the Imperial invaders, gambling that in this frenzy the Imps wouldn't pay close enough attention to recognize two of their own as holos.

The gamble worked. PROXY's proxies were gunning down stormtrooper after stormtrooper from behind. Chaos slowed their reaction time, and when the troopers finally whirled around to try to figure out who was shooting them, Commander Yast and his men rose from their hiding places and began firing as well.

Suddenly the invaders were caught in a pincer movement, with no place to run and few places to hide. Stormtrooper after stormtrooper fell. Juno stood up and rushed ahead, exhilarated, daring to hope they might actually survive this.

Then, at the very end of the hall, near the hangar entrance, two red lightsabers sprung to life.

As soon as they appeared they were in motion. She saw them cut through one stormtrooper body, which flickered into nothing and collapsed as two halves of a cobbled-together PROXY droid. The sabers kept moving and cut through another stormtrooper, this one flesh and armor. Next to fall was a Rebel trooper, then another.

Just barely, Juno could make out a figure in black robes carving through the hall like a relentless reaper.

"Fall back!" she screamed, loud as she could. "Everyone, fall back!"

-{}-

Starkiller felt the heat and agony of battle approaching. Was Juno still alive? He didn't know. He'd allowed Vader to trap him here, to cage him with lies and false promises. Like a fool he'd fallen for temptation and now Juno, the woman he loved, was in danger.

He tried to tear himself away and leave the Sith Lord in his cage, but he knew he could not.

There was only one way he could allow himself to leave this vault.

Staring at the Sith Lord's black form, Starkiller reached into the pouch at his belt and drew a lightsaber in either hand.

"You have had the chance to kill me before," Vader said, faintly mocking. "Again and again, you let Jedi mercy—Jedi begging—stay your hand. There is no Jedi on your shoulder now, urging for kindness. Will you strike me with all your hatred, apprentice?"

"Can you give me a reason not to?"

"Attack me," Vader urged. "Prove to me you are not a broken toy after all."

Maybe Vader had manipulated him since his rebirth on Kamino; maybe he had broken free. Maybe he was being manipulated now. Maybe he was on the threshold of final liberation.

Starkiller couldn't know. He couldn't even think. Darkness and panic were filling the Furnace like a drowning tide and he was not immune. Anger took hold of him easily. He ignited both sabers and lunged.

He didn't know how it happened. Maybe his lightsaber-strikes cut through Vader's durasteel bonds a little too slow. Maybe the Sith Lord broke them apart with the Force.

How didn't matter. In a split-second, Starkiller found himself staggered against Vader, a black-gloved hand around either wrist. He tried to call on the Force and summon the last necessary strength to bring both sabers down, but Vader held his arms in place, poised but unable to deliver the killing blow.

The black helm leaned so close to Starkiller's face that his breath fogged its black sheen. The Sith Lord said, "You have always been my inferior. Never forget that."

But he hadn't been. Their combat at Kamino might have been an elaborate ploy, but he—or Galen Marek, or another clone—had battled Vader on the Death Star. That had been a vicious battle, one that had shattered Vader's armor and left him on the brink of death.

That warrior had beaten Vader. Whether he was the same man as Starkiller was now didn't matter; he had to believe they shared the same strength.

He called on that power and pushed down. He felt Vader's hands give way under pressure; the blue blaze of his lightsabers dipped closer and closer to Vader's armored shoulders. The Sith Lord tried to resist, but Starkiller twisted his hands, bringing the blades closer to his helmet, so close.

Then there was an explosion. A burst of crackling dark side energy threw Starkiller across the room. His back slammed into the rough stone wall of the vault before he fell to the floor. He was back on his feet in an instant, and with the Force he summoned one fallen lightsaber to his hand. The other rose into the air—

-and flew into Vader's right glove. The Sith Lord looked slightly unreal with a blue blade reflecting off his armor instead of red, but he was no less deadly.

"Still a broken toy," Vader said as he stepped away from the wreckage of his invincible, flimsy cage. "It is so tempting to end your miserable existence here… but I would rather see you battle my true apprentice."

"You don't have apprentices. You have pawns," Starkiller snarled and braced for battle.

"I have found one who will stand by my side when I overthrow the Emperor. He is coming for us now."

That explained the dark tide Starkiller had felt. He cursed himself; in allowing himself to be snared by Vader's promises he'd abandoned the Rebels, abandoned Juno, to the approaching monster.

"Yes… it should be a most interesting contest," Vader said thoughtfully. "For me to watch, and for you to fight."

"What does that mean? Tell me!"

"It is simple. I lied when I said the cloning process had not been perfected."

-{}-

In this cramped corridor, laden with bodies and barricades, there was little room to flee. Some brave Rebels tried to buy time for their comrades by standing in the way of the approaching storm, that swirl of black robes and scarlet blades. Juno watched in horror as Commander Yast, standing his ground and protecting his men, was cleaved in half by a diagonal swipe.

Stubbornly, stupidly, she fired down the hall. She didn't think she could stop it, but she prayed she could at least slow it down, buy some time for herself and others to escape. But a fleeing soldier grabbed her shoulder and demanded, "Captain, you have to run!"

She knew that, but she waited, waited longer than she should have, captivated by the slaughter that was mercilessly and steadily approaching. She'd watched Starkiller savagely cut down enemies; she'd watched Darth Vader dispose of foe after foe. Somehow this seemed a more terrible storm than either.

Closer, closer. She spotted the underside of a human jaw, pale and clean-shaven. Every time it cut down another body a bit of his face flicked into view. Closer, closer. Right before she ran for her life, Juno saw it clearly. The face beneath the hood was lit by red and tight with malice, but she recognized it as Starkiller's own.