At this point, the man who called himself Starkiller was starting to doubt whether death had any meaning for him. Aboard Executor, at Corellia, on the Death Star, now at Shenandor Prime, he'd come close to death and perhaps passed through its gate, only to return again. It no longer mattered to him if those deaths had all happened to his current flesh. Perhaps Vader was right and after all his current shell was just a defective clone. Perhaps Kota spoke true and his deep inherent Force power denied death again and again. Or perhaps they were both right, and somehow his immortal essence passed from body to body, achieving the goal the Emperor himself supposedly craved.
He'd come close to death before and returned, but that didn't mean it was easy.
After Vader's first betrayal aboard Executor, delivered as a spear through the chest, Starkiller had drifted restlessly through visions of other places, times, and peoples. He'd received flashes of the Jedi he'd hunted and defeated on Vader's order: Rahm Kota, Kazdan Paratus, Shaak Ti. And he'd seen shards of his own future as well, not realizing it at the time.
"He is dead."
"Then he is now more powerful than ever."
Vader and Emperor, standing over his ravage body on the Death Star. They'd meant his legacy as a martyr for the nascent Rebellion, but perhaps, through his sacrifice, he had become something greater in the Force as well. No longer Vader's pawn, no longer even Galen Marek, but something more.
Something that could endure death and return.
He'd had other visions too. In the ruins of his family home on Kashyyyk. On the battle-strewn decks of Salvation. And of course in that strange cave on Dagobah, where he'd seen Juno under mortal threat and rushed to save her. Rushed, tried, and failed.
He wondered if the future wasn't fixed after all. Even when he'd thought he'd succeeded in changing his visions he'd only delayed them. The Empire had found him at Shenandor instead of Dantooine. The dark apprentice had met him in the Furnace instead of rain-swept Kamino.
Perhaps, all the while, the Force was urging him toward a singular destiny, one he still did not understand, in which case the Force would not relinquish the shade of Galen Marek until he had accomplished the task prepared for him.
If so he wasn't sure he wanted to experience it. His body and soul ached with death's agony and he almost wanted to achieve the final release.
Get a hold of yourself, boy! We're all depending on you!
He knew that voice. Only Rahm Kota could dispense wisdom so brusquely. When had Kota told him that? It must have happened some time or another. And as always, Kota's advice was sound. People needed him. Juno needed him. In his heart he knew that she was still not safe, and he could not give in until he'd protected her.
You have a destiny! Fulfill it!
A destiny the Force urged him toward even now. He felt visions swelling around him. The blackness in which he floated resolved into shadows and the shadows into shapes, images, delineations of light and darkness.
He saw-
Violet shadows, and the glow of morning on white snow marred by ash, debris, bodies, death. A city square, no place he recognized. Smoke and snow flurries drifted through the sunlight like clouds of gold. His boots crunched the snow as he approached an alley clogged with fresh-fallen bodies, not of stormtroopers, but humans wearing a uniform he didn't recognize. A blaster was in his hand, still smoking.
Somehow, Starkiller knew that he was seeing this through Juno's eyes.
The vision swiveled, and he heard her voice. "Come on, we keep going!"
She called to a young man, as bound up as her in layered winter gear. Bits of sandy hair peeked beneath the brim of his cap and framed light eyes. "We lost Persey," the young man said mournfully.
(Who is this, Starkiller wondered. When and where? If this was like most of his dreams, it was of things to come.)
"I know," he (Juno) said. "We're the only ones left." She turned and hurried through the alley.
"Are you sure?" asked the man behind her.
"Yes. Now come on-"
Then there was pain, strong enough to buckle knees and collapse a body. His left flank (not his, Juno's) burned. He could smell the cooked flesh. It was even worse agony than she'd experienced when shot on the Salvation and Starkiller's mind cried out. To see Juno's death through her own eyes was a kind of torture not even Vader could manufacture.
Juno's vision panned. Even wounded her willpower did not falter. She raised her weapon and shot one fallen soldier who'd reared onto his knees. Her bolts took him in the chest and bent him backwards, dead.
She was such a fighter. Starkiller glowed with admiration and wilted with grief.
Then Juno (he and Juno both) started to collapse. The young man was there to catch her up and hold her upright, even as her boots slipped on compacted snow. Yet even as he held her his hands brushed Juno's wounded side. The pain was unbearable.
"Gods damn it all," he and Juno hissed. "Gods damn it…"
"We're almost to the river," the blond man insisted. "We'll find someplace to take cover. And then-"
"No." Juno looked into those eyes: wide, earnest, caring, not in the way of a lover but just as urgent. "I'll slow you down," he said. "Just… leave me."
"Absolutely not."
The blond man was adamant and he started moving Juno down the alley. She was still in such pain (Starkiller felt it all and knew this was the kind of wound that would take hours to kill) but she moved her legs and staggered with him. Yet because he knew Juno's heart, he knew that her will was faltering as well as her body.
Cold air rasped her lungs as she said, "I've got my blaster… They'll never take me alive."
"No," the blond man repeated, and Starkiller desperately urged this apparition to save her at all costs.
But June gritted, "It's all right. Mission accomplished…" More pain; she almost collapsed. "Gods damn it, let me go," she insisted.
"Never."
"You just… want to know… what happened to him." (Who? Starkiller wondered.)
But this man (Juno's savior, and Starkiller's) was adamant. "I'm helping you because I don't want you to die. Whatever happens, we're still in this together."
Those bright eyes bored into hers, promising salvation she did not believe in herself. And then-
-then-
Shapes dissolved into shadows and shadows into black. Who was this man with the sandy hair and piercingly earnest eyes? When was he with Juno, and where was Starkiller himself? A bleak conviction came to him that when this vision came about, Starkiller would be long and forever gone.
Blackness, shadows, shapes, darkness and light. Images, sensations. Vision.
Once again he entered the mind and body of another. And once again he knew exactly whose eyes he saw through; whose pain wracked him. He'd first seen through eyes on Kashyyyk, when the Force had compelled him to watch his father's death through the killer's eyes. He was Darth Vader again but now-
-now-
Static broke vision, metal joints groaned. Artificial circuits snapped and sparked as the blade of pure light cleaved them apart. The body that was not a body crashed to the durasteel catwalk and he sprawled on his back, lost in real pain. An electric snow-burst crackled across his goggles and when it resolved the automatic focus locked onto the stump of his right hand. It showed in detail the sheared-off metal pikes that stood in for bone and the cabled circuits that passed for muscle. He tilted his head, just a bit, and the machines that were his eyes locked onto a new object a meter beyond.
It was the sandy-haired man, now dressed in black, his eyes now heavy with decision and grief. He stood with green lightsaber lifted high to strike.
The audioreceptors of his helmet were still working, and over his labored breathing he (master and apprentice both) heard the Emperor saying, "Good, good… Kill him and your journey to the dark side will be complete!"
The young man looked at his right hand and flexed it slowly, as though listening to the whirr of motors that stood in for joints. He turned from his victim and faced the cowled, withered Sith standing on the stairs behind him.
"You've failed," the man said, and tossed away his weapon. "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
The furrows on the Emperor's face deepened. A hateful power was building inside the old man.
"So be it… Jedi," sneered the Emperor. "If you do not turn… you will be destroyed."
The man was defenseless when cackling energy erupted from his fingers. Even if he'd had a lightsaber to defend with he would have stood no chance. Blue lighting, pure hate made manifest, racked his body. He fell to deck, smoke pouring from his black clothes as they burned around him.
The Emperor stopped long enough to savor the man pain. He kept his hands raised, poised to deliver more agony. "Yes... Only now, at the end, do you understand."
The Emperor attacked again, yellow teeth bared in glee. Starkiller felt Vader discover strength to rise. He towered over the old man but felt so small beside him. The Emperor had built Darth Vader (physically, morally, mentally) just as Vader had built Starkiller.
The Emperor halted his lightning-blasts. The young man continued to twist in pain as residual sparks racked his body. He tried to crawl toward the edge of the platform, as though to throw himself into the bottomless pit below.
"Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side," the Emperor said with relish. "You will pay the price for your lack of vision."
More lightning. More crackling agony. As he thrashed on the catwalk, the man managed to cry out, "Father… please… help…"
(Father. With one word, everything Starkiller thought he knew collapsed.)
The appeal gave the Emperor sadistic joy, and he shot more blasts of energy across the man's body. Vader looked back and forth between them: the son he'd made and the monster who'd made him.
The Emperor paused his attacks one more time to savor his victim's pain. With a wistful smile he said, "And now, young Skywalker… you will die."
Energy exploded once more. The boy thrashed and screamed; words were beyond him. Vader couldn't stand it. He lunged for the Emperor and grabbed the old man. He was so small, so light. The energy he'd summoned went wild, crackling across Vader's body, overloading and bursting the circuits of his respirator, his helmet, even his limbs. With the Force alone to propel him, Vader staggered to the railing and hurled the Emperor over the edge.
He didn't see the old man tumble down the pit. His goggles had burst to static-white and then gone black, their vital circuits blown out. Totally blind, Vader collapsed against the railing. His good hand found the bar and held him half-upright. Far below, he felt a final shriek of agony in the Force. The Emperor's dying energy rushed up the shaft as one final wave of crackling hate, and then it was gone.
He could barely breathe; his chest heaved to suck air from the wreckage of his respirator. His limbs refused to move. He was dying and would be gone in moments. Through the Force he felt his son, still luminous and alive, struggling through his residual pain to stand upright.
He felt nothing but satisfaction. All his life they'd told him he was special, a Chosen One born by the Force itself. The burden of destiny had crushed him. Now, he wondered if he'd fulfilled that destiny after all. If so he'd done it not out of love for the Force, but for his son.
-his son-
The vision broke, leaving Starkiller in blackness once more, but the final revelation remained. Starkiller had realized, as he'd battled Darth Vader on the Death Star, that his Master had in some way been trying to make Galen Marek into the scion he'd never had. A brutalized, broken son, just as Vader was in some way the Emperor's crippled child. But there was another son, a truer son than Starkiller could ever be. A son whose paths would one day cross with Juno's, and who'd vow to save her life.
And in saving this son, Darth Vader would save himself and destroy the Emperor.
Even in the depths of his hatred for Darth Vader, Starkiller has felt his Master's clashing desires and self-hatred. He'd felt none of that complexity from the dark apprentice. When the three battled it had seemed to Starkiller that he was an anchor of light, his twisted twin an icon of darkness, with Vader as a tipping point, not wholly bent to either side. He leaned deep in darkness now, just as the galaxy itself was trapped under the Emperor's pall.
But one day the galaxy would tip toward light.
Darth Vader was the fulcrum on which everything turned.
The vivid detail of his visions started to fade. Starkiller realized he was being pulled from death yet again. The familiar drone of PROXY's voice and the softness of Juno's touch, hands on cheeks, anchored him to living.
But the realization he'd had at death's gate remained. Knowledge and purpose became one, incredible but undeniable. A battle lay ahead of him (a battle always did) but this one would be different. This one would control the fulcrum's swing and the galaxy's fate.
It was Vader's destiny and Starkiller's own, for the two had always been one.
-{}-
In the moments after the dome blew and the shaft's air supply rushed into the planet's exterior void, the dark apprentice had allowed himself to become distracted. For his failure, Darth Vader had knocked him off the walkway on which he stood, and only a frantic pull of the Force had kept him from tumbling into the abyss below.
He'd hauled himself onto the bridge just in time to see Vader disappear through a sealed door, the same one through which his broken twin had been carried. The gush of wind around him had faltered, a sign that the shaft would soon be emptied of air. The dark apprentice had rushed for the nearest door—the entrance to the right branch—and found it sealed tight.
With two lightsabers in hand he'd carved himself a path to the interior corridor. With the Force he'd wedged the shard of the door back in place. Molten edges cooled and partially resealed, but even now air whistled through the cracks, out of the corridor and into the airless shaft.
The apprentice knew his mission was not over. He had to destroy Darth Vader and his twin; otherwise he'd never have a chance to kneel before his true Master. Through the Force he felt Vader and the one called Starkiller both in the nearby corridor; close enough to sense but not near enough to reach, even if he tried carving through rock with his lightsabers. Vader was still alert and potent; Starkiller seemed near death's edge. All three of them, ultimately, faced the same dilemma. The only way off this planet was through the ships in the hangar, and the hangar could only be reached after a short and dangerous sprint through the airless heat of shaft.
As the oxygen slowly drained around him, the dark apprentice did the only thing he could. He sealed himself into a separate chamber. This rock-walled vault was littered with the ruins of a cage, surely the one Vader had been put in after his intentional capture. Sitting cross-legged among the wreckage, feeling faint Force-echoes of the previous battle here, the dark apprentice closed his eyes and entered a meditation trance.
He slowed his body functions and slowed his breathing. His false Master, the one waiting for him in the parallel corridor, had taught him this method for conserving oxygen. Once, memorably, he'd locked his student in a chamber with two hours' air supply and left him to endure for six. He was ready to last six hours or six days if he had to.
Time slowed. He lost track of it, though he never lost the feeling of his two enemies nearby.
After uncounted minutes, the dark apprentice sensed that something had changed. He felt Starkiller roused from the brink of death, compelled not just by the Force but by some conviction the dark apprentice could not fathom. And as Starkiller's spirit lifted, so did Vader's.
The Dark Lord, it seemed, was more dependent on his failed apprentice than even he would admit. If they stood together, they might prove insurmountable.
"Do not falter now," commanded the voice in his head.
The dark apprentice shuddered involuntarily. It had been days since this true Master had touched his mind, and he'd forgotten the malicious clarity of that voice. Though half a galaxy away, the power of Darth Sidious was undiminished.
"Complete your task," Sidious urged him. "Dispose of your foolish Master and his wayward pet. Only then will you prove yourself worthy of standing at my side and learning my deepest secrets."
The dark apprentice did not need to be reminded of his mission. He stayed within his trance, barely breathing, thinking nothing, feeling only the hearts of his enemies. Whenever they made their move, he would be ready for them.
-{}-
Juno didn't dare think that her touch had roused him from death, as his had rescued her at Kamino, but she nonetheless felt warm pride when Starkiller's eyes fluttered and found focus on hers, so close. His mouth creaked open; his breath was hot and smelled faintly of blood, but it was nonetheless a balm on her face.
"I thought I'd lost you." Her voice choked in relief.
He smiled weakly. "You know me… I always come back."
She prayed that was true, but deep down she knew not even Starkiller could last forever. "PROXY… he found some medical supplies. We stitched up your side, put in bacta insertions. We gave you painkillers, but..."
"It doesn't hurt," he said softly. "Where are we? Still Shenandor?"
"Yes. We're by that droid shop. I… I had to blow the dome."
"You mean-"
"Yes. It's opened to space. But there's gravity outside, there's heat. For a few seconds we could survive. And on the other side there's the ship."
"Ship..."
"The one the Imperials came in on. Something special, with heat shields. Krevkee, the droid mechanic, took the rest of the troops over there. They're securing the thing now. We're all going to get out of here, I swear it."
She stroked his face and tried to look brave, but Starkiller was staring into the ceiling above his medical bed. He seemed lost in thoughts far beyond her.
"This is my fault." He whispered so faintly she had to lean closer.
"Don't say that."
"No… Vader… I led brought here."
Her heart froze. "No… You tried to stop this."
"And the clone… the dark apprentice… I led him too..."
"No you didn't. You couldn't have-"
"He's still here… Alive… Waiting for us."
Juno had hoped desperately that Vader had been wrong about that, but if Vader hadn't needn't help against that dark side clone he'd have surely killed them already.
"You can't fight him yet," she warned. "You have to wait. Rest."
Starkiller's eyes wider. "He's here too. With us. Isn't he?"
The rasp of Vader's respirator rose as if in reply. Footsteps clacked on the medical room's metal floor. Juno resisted the urge to turn around and kept staring at Starkiller, as though that could deny the black monster looming behind her.
Starkiller's eyes shifted and found focus past her shoulder, on the face of his maker. "I knew you survived," he said.
"A common enemy stands between us and freedom," Darth Vader said. "We must defeat him to escape."
"That's truer than you know."
"If you do not help me, your woman will suffer greatly before she dies."
Starkiller snorted, like it was a joke. "You don't need to fall back on threats. I know what I have to do."
Juno knew there was no other option; still, her heart trembled.
Vader lifted a hand. "Rise. We have a battle to finish."
"He's not ready," she snapped, still not looking back.
"He will have to be. The only way we can defeat the enemy is together."
"I know," Starkiller said hoarsely. "I know. Just… let me recover… a little bit longer. Healing trance..."
"I never taught you such a skill," Vader said.
"I've had better teachers than you."
The Dark Lord had no response to that. Instead he said, "The droid is communicating with your allies in the hangar. His progress should be checked on."
"I'll do it." Juno didn't trust Vader alone with PROXY. She threw a tiny glance back. "Go outside. Give us one minute. One."
She expected Vader to object. Instead he stepped outside and the door slid shut behind him.
Juno turned desperately back to Starkiller. "Once they get past the shaft, we're going to run. We're going to leave him to die fighting that clone-"
"Juno, no."
"I don't care if he hears me. He knows what I want anyway." She lightly touched his lips. "We're getting out of here, together. And we're leaving him behind for good."
She saw the objection in her eyes; it nearly broke her heart. This was the man she'd loved, lost, and had returned to her through reasons she still didn't understand. She knew Vader's machinations were complex and insidious, but she hadn't dared consider them closely until now.
When she'd been captive on Kamino she'd tried needling the Dark Lord. She could remember her own words: "The harder you drive him away, the harder he comes back. No matter how to punish him, no matter how many times you betray him, he keeps returning for more. I'm beginning to wonder if he's been on your side the whole time and just doesn't know it." Less a taunt than a shocking confession of doubt she still could not shake.
Perhaps, even now, despite everything, there was a core of him loyal to Darth Vader. For all the light he'd accomplished, he still yearned to serve his dark Master.
If Starkiller had protested she would have broken right there. But instead he reached out with his good hand, cupped her face, and smiled. "Together. I promise."
He tried to raise his head. She bent low and met him with a kiss. His mouth was dry and tasted of iron but she didn't care. Kissing him, touching him, feeling his breath; she needed all of it to convince herself he was not another one of Vader's traps.
When their lips parted she pulled herself to full height and asked, "Can you really heal yourself with the Force?"
"Got a few lessons… from Kota."
"He's not much of a healer."
"No. But I should at least be able to draw some energy."
"Then I'll leave you to it." She couldn't resist giving him another kiss, which turned into three. Then, knowing she couldn't leave Vader unattended any longer, she separated and left Starkiller to his self-repair.
Darth Vader and PROXY both were in the disheveled remains of Krevkee's laboratory. The droid stood beside a communications console, connected by a jack from his right arm. Impressively, PROXY didn't seemed to have suffered fresh damage during his fight with the dark apprentice. At least, not this version of PROXY. She'd seen one of his puppet bodies cut down in the trunk corridor during the evil clone's first appearance. Another body, PROXY reported, had been gunned down seconds earlier by the stormtroopers it had ambushed while under holo-guise.
But the last of PROXY's proxies was intact. It had joined Krevkee and the others on their frantic rush to the main corridor, and PROXY's main body remained in contact with it.
The droid's eyes flickered as his main processor received information. "Master Eclipse," he said, "I am happy to report that the main corridor is totally cleared of hostiles."
"Finally some good news," she said. "is your, um, other body safe?"
"Yes, Master, my proxy is intact. I am currently in the main communications suite attempting to contact the shieldship."
Juno wished Vader were elsewhere instead of watching this conversation. "What about Krevee and the others?"
"They are currently in the main hangar. As you know, the Imperial freighter took damage on entry and may not be suitable for travel through Shenandor's hot zone."
"Well, if the shieldship is still working we can take the Rogue Shadow. Wasn't there another ship, too?"
"Yes, Master. A BTL-S3 Y-wing. It is a non-combat model refitted for courier runs, with two seats available."
"We need more carry space than that."
"Indeed. I am now speaking with the shieldship." PROXY cocked his head. "I have good news. The shieldship crew has managed to repair its engines after the unexpected and inexplicable malfunction."
Juno now believed that malfunction had been some Force-wrought damage courtesy of the dark apprentice. "Can they get us out of here?"
"They are capable of sublight transit."
Juno breathed a sigh of relief. "What's happening outside the hot zone?"
"I have just asked them." A slight flicker of the eyes. "They report that the Mon Calamari warship Solidarity and several support ships engaged the Imperial in battle. They also report these ships have been destroyed."
Her spirits fell. If Solidarity was gone, so was Commodore Viedas, who'd nurtured her career as a rising Rebel captain. Even worse, they must have lost Rahm Kota. She couldn't believe anything could take down that gruff, headstrong Jedi Master, and Starkiller had said nothing of his death. She chose, desperately, to believe he was still out there.
"What about that Impstar?" she asked. "Has it come back toward the planet?"
"No, Master. It was quite heavily damaged and remains well outside the hot zone. However, if we were to launch an escape, we might yet be intercepted by the Imperial cruisers that arrived as backup."
It was just one karking thing after another. She tried to put aside Darth Vader and the evil clone to weigh her escape options. The shieldship was a slow and easy target, but if it could get them out of the hot zone, Rogue Shadow's cloaking device would help them evade the Imperials. The insulated freighter was probably faster than the shieldship, but it lacked a cloak.
"Okay," she grunted. "Can you find Krevkee? We need to figure out a plan."
"Of course." There was a brief scratch from PROXY's vocabulator; then it sounded with the mechanic's chirpy voice.
"That you, Captain Eclipse? Stang, I thought you were a goner."
This felt weirder without PROXY wearing a holo-guise, but she supposed this human-sized droid couldn't mimic a stubby Aleena. "I'm tentatively alive. What's your status, Krevkee?"
"I'm in the Imp freighter that crashed on our Gthroc. Did a good systems check. I think we can get this thing flying."
That was a start. "Where are the other soldiers?"
"I got 'em all packed in here. We got everybody except your droid in the comm room. Or is it droids?"
"My prime body is intact and currently with Master Eclipse in your laboratory," PROXY said, seemingly replying to himself. "We must first overcome several difficult impedi-ments, which may be a timely process."
Switching back to Krevkee's voice PROXY said, "We're ready to take off when you are. Well, we will be, once I get this pilot droid outta the way."
Juno made a snap decision. "If you have people who can fly that ship, get out of here now, before the Imperials catch up."
"What about you, Captain?"
"The shieldship is operational again. We'll use it to escort Rogue Shadow when we get to it."
If we get to it, she left unsaid, but Krevkee heard it. The Aleena asked seriously, "Is that an order, Captain?"
"Yes. If you can get people to safety, do it. We'll take care of ourselves."
"All right. I'll get things started." Krevkee paused, but PROXY's vocoder relayed ambient noises of footsteps and shifting bodies as the mechanic moved through the freighter. When the voice returned it said, "What about that droid body we've got on our side?"
Again PROXY seemed to reply to himself. "That body is merely a proxy directed from my core processor and routed through the Furnace's internal transmission net. It would become inert as soon as you leave the base. In any case, I have a better use for that body here."
Juno raised a questioning eyebrow, but before PROXY could explain further, Krevkee's transmission resumed.
"Copy that," the mechanic said. "Okay. In the cockpit now. Let me see…"
A second voice came over the comm. It was tinny from distance and mechanical in tone, though much harsher than PROXY's. "I am EV-7D4, steward of this vessel. State your intention."
"We need to get the hell out of here," Krevkee replied. "Move aside."
"This is not per my owner's agreement with Miltin Takel. I am to provide transit as ordered to Imperial users only. You are not Imperial."
"What gave it away? Listen-"
"I will not comply. I will not be coerced."
"Krevkee, are you sure you've got a handle on that?" asked Juno.
"Don't worry, I can deal with droids," the mechanic said with weary patience. "Let me take a look at this thing."
"I will not be coerced," EV-7D4 repeated. "I will not be co-opted."
"Yeah, whatever," Krevkee muttered. "Got the shutdown switch-"
Then there was a burst of noise, and the entire transmission was rendered into static.
Juno stared in horror. "PROXY, what happened?"
The static disappeared, replaced by the droid's familiar, soothing voice. "It seems, Master Eclipse, that a terminal error was made."
"What do you mean?"
"The Imperial freighter seems to have exploded in the hangar."
"What?"
"I suspect a self-destruct sequence was triggered, likely when Krevkee tried to override the droid pilot." With a tiny tremor he added, "I'm so sorry, Master. I do not believe there were any survivors."
Juno's breath left her. She almost fell. How many men and women had been on that ship? A dozen? Twenty? Everyone who'd survived the initial Imperial assault, and that had been so few. Now they were all gone, and so was the best chance she and Starkiller had of getting off this rock.
In her career with the Alliance she'd never failed this utterly. She tried to draw herself together and clung to the thought of Starkiller. She had to get him out of here. She had to save him, as he'd saved her so many times.
Save him from Darth Vader, from that evil clone. Even from himself, if necessary.
"PROXY," she asked, trying to ignore Vader breathing at her back, "You've still got that second body on the other side, right?"
"Indeed. I will do everything to ease your escape. With myself, and my proxy."
Every time he used that word it felt like the universe was making a weird joke. "Okay. Go prep the Rogue Shadow for flight. And check out that Y-wing, just in case."
"My proxy will do it now. Is there anything I may do for your, Master?"
"You've done enough. Thank you."
Finally, Darth Vader spoke. "How long must we wait?"
"Until Starkiller is ready." She reluctantly faced him. "Unless you can tell me when that crazy clone's gone to sleep?"
"He does not sleep," said Vader. "He only waits."
Somehow she suspected as much. "Then we wait too. As long as it takes."
Vader stared, breathed that awful breath, and finally nodded. It was going to be an agonizing delay for them all.