Hey folks, Grubkiller here.
Here's part 6 of this story.
Hope you enjoy.
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Death was not at all what he expected. He was aware of it, for a start, even if that awareness was of a fragmentary, nebulous sort. His consciousness came and went in waves, drifting in and out on unfathomable tides. He sank and surfaced at the whim of forces he couldn't comprehend. All he could do was ride with them and hope that death wouldn't be like this forever.
There was a surprising amount of pain, considering that his body no longer existed, lurking at the edge of his consciousness like a reminder of something important he had forgotten. Was this some kind of punishment for the actions he had performed during his life? Were the Jedi he had slain getting their revenge from a more privileged position in the afterlife?
That was a ridiculous thought, he told himself. Irrespective of whether there was an afterlife or not, privilege could not possibly exist, for anyone. The light and the dark sides of the Force were identical in stature, if not in effect. He could no more be tormented by the Jedi than he could torment them.
There were voices, too, and visions. They were harder to rationalize. Some were familiar, such as PROXY soothing him as he would a child—as he had for many years, until Darth Vader's apprentice had grown too old for such coddling. There was Darth Vader himself, urging him to embrace his fear, not fight it, and thereby become as strong as a mountain.
Some of the visions were memories, such as of the time he had asked PROXY to chain him immobile in the dark and refused food or water until he had assembled a lightsaber lying in pieces before him, using only the Force. He had failed at the attempt, but in his extremity he had found the strength to abandon his weakened body and embrace the dark side. He returned to that place many times after his death at Darth Vader's hand.
In endless loops he felt his Master's lightsaber burning through his stomach and the coldness of vacuum sucking the air from his lungs.
Many of the visions, however, were of things he could not possibly have seen while alive, featuring people both familiar and unfamiliar in times and places he could not always pin down.
He saw …
… General Rahm Kota in the control center of the TIE fighter factory over Nar Shaddaa. His eyes were undamaged, and his stance was straight-backed from his recent victory. Flanked by armed insurgents and surrounded by the bodies of dead stormtroopers, he snapped off his lightsaber and began issuing orders.
"Lock down the command center and get that holoprojector up and running. Tell all squads to fan out and funnel any opposition toward us."
"Yes, sir." Insurgents began running in all directions.
"General Kota, he's here!" cried one.
Kota quickly moved to where a flickering image had appeared on the newly activated holoprojector. It showed the approaching Rogue Shadow. On seeing it, the general smiled grimly.
"So I've finally drawn you out of hiding …" To the insurgent he added, "Lower the containment field on Hangar Twelve and tell the men to get into position."
"Yes, General." The soldier left the room to hurry about his errand.
He saw …
… Kazdan Paratus pacing on his four metal limbs about the junk High Council Chamber. The blank-eyed heads of his mannequins turned eerily to follow his progress.
"No rest," he wheezed. "No rest for any of us! Why can't they leave us alone?"
He turned to face the mannequin of Master Yoda as though the pile of droid junk had spoken.
"Eh, my friend? What's that? Oh, yes. He stinks of Sith, all right. But what's he doing here now? Haven't I suffered enough?"
The paranoid Jedi Master continued to pace back and forth, passing his deactivated lightsaber from hand to hand, as though debating whether or not to use it.
He saw …
… Ahsoka Tano, deep in the fungal forests of Felucia, covered in slime and fully nude except for her armlets and her boots. Shading her eyes, she watched the Rogue Shadow glide overhead, visible as little more than a distortion in the light. She frowned and stood back up.
"Well, it looks like you treated that dark-sider to a good show."
She then turned to see a Zabrak woman appear out of nowhere. Several felucian warriors that guarded her also de-cloaked as they walked out of the trees. Their masks were far more distorted and twisted, revealing their gruesome features.
"Darth Vader has found us." Ahsoka said, walking through the forest, not caring that she was as naked as the day she was born.
"Then the Emperor will send his goons here any day now to deal with us?" Maris asked.
"Perhaps," Ahsoka Tano answered her. "Gather your belongings and take these people into hiding. Do not come out of hiding until I've returned with the Rebel fleet."
"Let them come." Maris said. "We will paint this world with their blood."
"Against the Sith and their Empire? You would surely be killed." Ahsoka Tano raised a hand to silence her protests. "Please, Maris, just go to the graveyard and wait for my summons. Your lust for vengeance will lead to the deaths of many innocence. Remember the Jedi ways. You have to lead these people to safety."
With an angry look on her face, the girl simply activated her yellow lightsabers. The Dark Felucian warriors did the same with their bone swords and force energy shields, preparing to defend their new master.
Ahsoka Tano activated her own lightsabers, and prepared to give the fallen Jedi a proper lesson...
Starkiller saw the past, the present, alternate timelines, and possible futures. That was what he assumed. He was at one with the Force—and the Force saw all things, felt all things, lived in all living things. He had returned to the source of the river that ran steadily through the galaxy, invigorating and sweeping up the dead as it passed. The current tumbled and turned him to face all aspects of his life. He watched it unfold with new understanding.
Some fragments were, however, much harder to comprehend.
He saw …
… a sad-eyed young woman standing at a large bay window, looking out over a landscape of denuded forests. In the distance a fiery line stretched up into the night sky, to a point in low orbit where a cluster of tiny lights gathered. Somewhere nearby, an astromech droid cooed mournfully to itself.
… a dirty and tattered man sitting in the corner of an enclosure that seemed made entirely of bone. A small halo-lamp shone in front of him. His hands hung free, but his wrists were tightly bound by electronic cuffs. The stink of raw meat cloyed in the air, making him wrinkle his nose in disgust.
… Darth Vader, his armored life-support suit rent to the flesh beneath in a dozen places, standing in the wreckage of a mighty battle. Dead stormtroopers lay in pieces on the bloody floor surrounded by fragments of shattered transparisteel and twisted metal. The apprentice's former Master put a hand to his exposed temple, touched the scars visible there, and swayed.
"He is dead," Vader said with some difficulty over the damaged wheeze of his respirator.
The Emperor stepped out of the shadows to stand at his side.
"Then he is now more powerful than ever."
Was this what might have been had he stood up to his Master instead of giving in numbly as his entire life had been turned upside down? In his deathly state of semi-consciousness, the former apprentice couldn't tell. He could only watch as he would a blurry, fragmented holodrama, in the hope that at some point, perhaps when he had more of the pieces before him, the sense of it would start to emerge.
If anything, however, it only became more complicated. Beyond light and dark, beyond past and future, beyond life and death, he saw the same face he had glimpsed while fighting Rahm Kota; the face that might have been his as an older man, had he lived: strong and kind, with dark hair and warm, brown eyes. In the background, he could hear the distant pounding of weapons and the crump of explosions. Trees cracked and fell. A shadow loomed over the vision, as though a cloud had blocked the sun. He could smell burning blood and hair and hear the sound of a lightsaber sizzling through flesh. A voice cried "Run. Run now!"—
—but he didn't. He couldn't. Whatever kind of dream this was, it wouldn't let him move. He was trapped within it, fixed tight by some strange kind of mental amber. Was this a fantasy or something more sinister? Was someone trying to tell him something?
He saw … somewhere not so far away—or perhaps at the farthest edge of the universe—Juno Eclipse was in pain.
It came less as a surprise, more of a relief, when he finally awoke.
At first, anyway.
His first clue that he had returned from the dead came when darkness truly fell. The visions evaporated, and the voices went with them. For a very welcome period, there was nothing to see or hear, or even think. He could just rest, and be.
Then new noises began to intrude on the peaceful silence: the whirring of cutting blades, low-pitched beeps and clicks from droids, a fizzing, spitting noise that could have been a cauterizing tool, and other sinister sounds. His heart rose at the sound of a respirator rising above the others. The faint sticking point between each breathing cycle was horribly familiar.
An artificial voice spoke: "Lord Vader, he's regaining consciousness."
"Keep him restrained until I'm finished."
"Yes, sir."
The former apprentice raged against invisible bonds to move limbs he couldn't feel. The babble of noises faded for a moment, then returned, this time with light and sensation accompanying it. He was strapped prone to a medical table in the center of an operating theater. Multicolored tubes and wires ran from several places in his body to dark machines hovering around him, and stretching up to the high ceiling above. Angular droids milled about him, poking and prodding with sharp-tipped appendages.
The familiar silhouette of Darth Vader loomed over him as, without warning, full sensation was returned to his body.
He strained against the straps holding him down and screamed with rage.
"You!" Foam flecked his lips. He had never felt such anger—brilliant in its purity, yet so untamed it utterly debilitated him. "You tried to kill me!"
"No." Vader leaned closer, resting one gloved hand on the table as though to literally impress his gravity on his former apprentice. "The Emperor wanted you dead, but I did not. I brought you here to be rebuilt. If the Emperor knew that you survived, he would kill us both."
He stared up at the expressionless mask, neck twisted to increase the distance between them. Could it be so? His memories of betrayal and pain were so unclouded by doubt. A flash of his Master's bright red lightsaber protruding from his gut threatened to tip him back into unconsciousness. He resisted, thinking of Ahsoka Tano's final words to him: The Sith always betray one another. He had been so sure—but surety meant nothing. He had to decide with his mind, not his gut.
"Why?" he asked. "Why rescue me if it puts you in so much danger?"
"Because you are the advantage I need to overthrow the Emperor. He forced my hand, before we were ready. Now he believes you are dead. His ignorance is your true power, if you have the will to use it."
"And if I refuse?"
Darth Vader's voice grew harsher, his silhouette darker, if that was possible. "Then you will die. This lab will self-destruct and you will perish along with all aboard. There will be no witnesses."
'There never are,' he thought, 'where you're concerned'. But a lifetime of servitude forbade him from saying the words. He closed his eyes, unsure of which possibility he was more afraid: that Darth Vader was telling him the truth now, or that everything he'd ever been told was a lie.
The harsh breathing of the respirator came closer still. "The Emperor ordered your death," Darth Vader said. "Only by joining me will you have your revenge."
He opened his eyes and stared straight at the mask hiding the man who had killed him, then saved him.
Only one choice gave him time to think this strange happenstance through. Only one decision came with the option of changing his mind later. Only one fork in the road before him left him alive, not dead.
In a hollow voice, the apprentice said, "What is thy bidding, my Master?"
Darth Vader straightened, satisfaction apparent in every movement. "The Emperor hides behind his army of spies. They watch my every move." One gloved hand waved at the machines attending the operating theater. The droids backed away, and the tubes retracted. "We must provide them with a distraction." He punched a button on the table.
The apprentice's restraints popped open. He slowly sat up, rubbing his wrists, and looked down at his body. He was clad in an entirely new outfit, one not dissimilar to his Master's, with black leather overlaying thin sheaths of armor, heavy gloves and boots, and a high collar. Nearby, over the shoulder of one of the droid surgeons, was a hooded black cape with a red lining, presumably his also. The same droid handed him a lightsaber hilt. It took him a moment to realize that it wasn't the one he had wielded all his conscious life. That lightsaber had tumbled into the vacuum of space and been lost forever.
He flexed his fingers, feeling stronger and different somehow. The pain was completely gone. He felt better than he ever had before, as though he had spent months in a bacta tank.
Instead of pondering that issue, he asked, "What sort of distraction? An assassination?"
His Master shook his head. "No single act will hold the Emperor's notice for long. You must assemble an army to oppose him."
The apprentice cocked his head. "An Army?" He asked with barely contained annoyance.
"You will locate the Emperor's enemies and convince them that you wish to overthrow the Empire. When you have created an alliance of rebels and dissidents, we will use them to occupy the Emperor and his spies. With their attention diverted, we can strike."
The apprentice ran a hand across his chest, feeling the smoothness of his uniform as though with entirely new nerves. The plan was good. It could work.
"Where should I start?"
"That decision is yours. Your destiny is now your own. But you must leave here at once. Save for PROXY, you must sever all ties to your past. No one must know that you still serve me."
He bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Yes, my Master."
"Now go. And remember that the dark side is always with you."
The image of Darth Vader shimmered and assumed the familiar features and form of PROXY. The droid stumbled, but quickly regained his balance.
"PROXY!"
"Master! I am pleased to see that you are not actually dead." The droid beamed the only way he could: through his photoreceptors. "I was afraid that I would never be able to fulfill my primary programming and kill you myself."
"I'm sure you'll have your chance, once we get out of here."
PROXY moved away and began pushing buttons on the nearest terminal.
"Where are we, by the way?"
"Somewhere in the uncharted Dominus system, I believe."
"But what is this place?"
"This is the Empirical, master, Lord Vader's top-secret mobile laboratory. We've been here for six standard months." PROXY looked up from the terminal. "Lord Vader has updated all of my protocols. Before I kill you, I am to do everything possible to help you vanish. Should I ready the Rogue Shadow for launch?"
The apprentice tried to think. He flexed his hands, marveling at his amazing return to health. It seemed almost too good to be true.
A disconcerting thought occurred to him. He hastily tugged off first his right glove, then the left. He was reassured to see only skin beneath—no synthetic materials or artificial joints. His knuckles moved the same as always; his fingernails were neat and even. The only odd detail was that his scars were gone.
He rubbed his right hand down his chest to his stomach, remembering the terrible wound his Master had inflicted. He thought of the damage raw vacuum did to human lungs. Bacta tanks performed miracles, but they weren't that good.
"Master?"
He looked up at PROXY and blinked. "What? Oh. I didn't realize the ship was here, too."
"Yes, master. How else would we get away?" The droid stepped back from the terminal. Indicating it with a hand, he said, "I've accessed the main ship's computer and begun carrying out Lord Vader's orders."
The apprentice nodded, distracted by a thought that had just struck him. He had been on the Empirical for six months, PROXY had said, but the Rogue Shadow was here, ready for him. That might not be the only thing to survive the near catastrophe of the Emperor's intervention.
"What happened to Juno, PROXY?"
"Your pilot? She's aboard the Empirical, too, I believe. In a holding cell."
"What? Why?"
"Captain Eclipse was accused of treason." PROXY paused for a split second, as though searching for exactly the right words. "Lord Vader gave explicit orders to sever all ties to your past. You aren't planning to rescue her, are you?"
The apprentice irritably pulled his gloves back on. "I don't know what my plans are yet, PROXY. Let's just concentrate on getting out of here."
"As you wish, master." PROXY inclined his head. He took one step back to the terminal, pushed a large red button, and then headed for the door.
A sudden jolt through the deck made both of them stumble. The apprentice reached out for the droid and steadied them both. He looked around the cyborg lab with concern as a klaxon began to wail.
"Alert!" called a voice over the intercom. "Navigation systems have malfunctioned. Repeat, navigation systems have malfunctioned!"
PROXY tugged at the apprentice's shoulder. "Come, master. We must leave here."
Realization made him look at the droid's recent activities in a new light.
'Lord Vader's orders', he had said. 'There will be no witnesses.'
"PROXY, what did you just do?"
"I've set the Empirical on a collision course with the Dominus system's primary star," he said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"But everyone on the Empirical—"
"Lord Vader said that no one must know of your existence. He was very specific."
"And you really are still trying to kill me."
"No, no. Not yet, master. You still have plenty of time to reach the Rogue Shadow."
The apprentice swallowed an upwelling of frustration. It wasn't PROXY's fault. He was just obeying orders. But by doing so he had put them in a very inconvenient position.
"Okay, let's go. Stick close."
"Yes, master."
With his strangely healed hands, the apprentice activated the lightsaber his Master had given him. The blade was as green as it was in his memory. It was Rahm Kota's, he realized with a jolt.
PROXY shuffled a step behind him as he put that small detail out of his mind and headed for the exit.
The wailing of the alert klaxon woke Juno from a long and miserable nightmare in which she had been filing the report of her mission on Callos, not with Darth Vader, but with her father, who had stood towering over her, long nose jutting out like the arm of a gallows, and pronounced her a failure. But the mission was a success, she had protested. She had followed orders to the letter. Not good enough, he had said. Never good enough, girl. When will you realize that and stop trying?
She woke with a gasp, hanging suspended from the magna locks where the guards put her every day. The routine was worse than torture. They would take her down once every five hours for a ten-minute walk. She could use the refresher and drink as much water as her stomach could hold. Sometimes they gave her food, but not always. When the ten minutes were up, she went back into position, hanging with her arms outstretched between the locks, legs dangling, wearing the same uniform pants and singlet she'd had on when she arrived … wherever she was.
The guards never told her anything. She could tell, though, that they regarded her with contempt. A traitor to the Empire, she deserved no better. That she was still alive puzzled all of them. Her continued existence drained their patience as well as their resources. They surely had better things to do.
But they followed orders to the letter, like good stormtroopers, and that meant that someone, somewhere, wanted Juno Eclipse alive. To suffer, perhaps, before she died. Still, every time the troopers came near her, she expected that her time had come, that they would take her down and execute her right there, with a single blaster shot to the head. At least that, she thought in her darkest moments, would be a kind of release.
Her throat and lips were parched. Her head and arms ached. She could barely feel her fingers because the locks held her so tightly around her wrists.
This time, with a siren wailing, she successfully fought the urge to despair.
"Alert!" blared a voice over the station intercom. "Navigation systems have malfunctioned. Repeat, navigation systems have malfunctioned!"
She raised her head and looked around. The other cells, visible across the central prison detainment area, were empty. Her guards were momentarily absent, probably checking the source of the alert. If she'd had any way of freeing herself, she could have run during the confusion for an escape pod and gotten away from the station forever.
And then …?
Feeling a surge of frustration, she strained against her bonds. Muscles stood out on her thin arms. Her wrists were bruised from numerous such attempts. One day, she had told herself many times, the power would flicker and the locks would fail just long enough. Until then, it was a good form of exercise. Straining and hoping was much better than thinking—about what had happened to her, or what might be to come.
The station lurched around her. She sagged momentarily before trying again. Whatever was going on, it was serious. She could hear the stormtroopers barking at one another.
"Why aren't these bulkheads opening?"
"We have to get to the escape pods!"
"The door isn't accepting the security codes!"
The announcer returned with an ominous-sounding update: "Security breach in sector nine. Subject Zeta has escaped. Set blasters to kill!"
"Oh, that's not good," commented one of her erstwhile guards. Even through his vocoder Juno could hear the fear in his voice.
She didn't know who or what Subject Zeta was, but she was determined not to be hanging up like a dead womp rat when it found her.
Tugging on her bonds, she thought she felt one of them weaken.
Two troopers appeared in her field of vision, blaster rifles held at the ready. They were aimed not at her, but back down the hallway.
"Forget the prisoner," said one. "We've got to get out of here."
"What about … him?"
"Let him die with the rest of the experiments."
They punched at the air lock leading from the detainee area, but had no luck there, either. The air lock was securely sealed as well. Abandoning that futile task, they ran back the way they had come. Blasterfire and screams echoed up the corridor.
Juno resumed her escape attempt. The locks hadn't shifted a millimeter. The illusion of slippage had come as a result of blood from her right wrist lubricating the restraint on that side. She yanked harder, ignoring the pain, but was as stuck fast as ever.
"Empirical security systems are offline," warned the announcer. "All Imperials are advised to breach bulkhead doors and secure escape pods."
The ship juddered around her, and the announcer returned in a more anxious voice: "All escape pods have been jettisoned—empty. Uh, await further orders. What?" The announcer must have turned away with the microphone open. "What fool ordered that?"
The broadcast ended with a loud click, almost drowned out by the sound of blasterfire and the station shaking around her. The cries of stormtroopers dying made her more determined than ever to get away before whatever had killed them found her, but she could make no greater effort than she already was.
Exhausted, she sagged weakly in the locks, sucking in air that tasted of smoke and blood. It was getting warmer, too, which couldn't be a good sign. The flexing of the walls had to be more than just turbulence. If something had gone terribly wrong and the station's orbit had been disturbed, the commotion could come from thermal expansion—not dangerous in itself, but lethal if they came too close to the source.
Executed, killed by the thing that had escaped from Vader's lab, or burned alive: those appeared to be the only choices open to her. After all her years of loyal service and everything she had done in the name of the Empire, and despite the constant lip service paid by Palpatine to notions of justice and the public good, this was where she had ended up. All her dreams of advancement shattered. Her life in ruins.
She wondered what her father would think of her now, if he could see her and hear her side of the story. What faith could he possibly have in a system that turned on her for no reason? What did anyone owe an Emperor who condemned her for obeying orders?
But she knew she could never have convinced him to believe the truth, just as she knew she could never have talked to him about the doubts that had stirred in her after Callos—and not just about Vader's handling of that affair. The official story of her mother's death was that she had been killed in crossfire. What if the Empire had been as heavy-handed on Corulag as the Black Eight had been on Callos?
For the thousandth time she saw her bombs striking home on the planetary reactor, the brilliant explosions lighting up the jungle. Only as she pulled up out of her run and sped for orbit did she note the chain reaction her strikes had caused. The stricken reactor was belching pollutants into the atmosphere and spewing megaliters of caustic chemicals from vast underground stores into the canals that fed it with fresh water. She could practically see the living surface of Callos recoil from the poisons she had inadvertently released. A cold, sick feeling began to blossom in her gut.
That feeling only became worse on her return to her base ship. Amid the backslapping of her Black Eight pilots, she had felt a growing urgency to check telemetry data gathered by the ship. From the privacy of her quarters she had watched, appalled at the sight of the reactor burning on beneath a spreading pall of deadly smoke. Lightning flashed under the dense mushroom cloud, starting fires and catalyzing deadly chemical reactions. Nearby river systems were soon utterly choked with biological debris.
Trying to keep her voice level, she had commed a friend with a background in environmental science. He had seen the data. His projections were dire.
"It's a runaway chain reaction for certain," he had said. "I hope you got a close look at those forests while you were down there. They won't be there six months from now, and they're never coming back."
A whole biosphere destroyed—for what? This wasn't just because Callos had dared wriggle in the Emperor's grip. Neither was it solely because she had requested a degree of clemency from the campaign's director: Lord Vader. The Emperor was less interested in punishing, she had begun to suspect, than setting an example.
The terrible thing about examples was that there didn't have to be anyone left alive afterward. A ruin told the story as effectively as an eyewitness—perhaps more so, for the ringing silence left in the wake of such an outrage only served to impress the Emperor's boot heel even more deeply into the galaxy.
No protests. No alarm bells. No warnings.
What had the Empire come to?
Perhaps, she had dared to think, the Empire had always been like this.
Before she could follow that line of thought to any kind of conclusion, orders had come from Vader to report to the Executor for a new duty. Glad to be absolved of any further involvement in genocide—or so she had hoped—she had said nothing of her misgivings and moved on, mistakenly thinking that, by some small miracle, she had avoided becoming snarled in the Empire's gargantuan workings, as Callos had been, and Starkiller, and perhaps her mother, too, all those years ago.
So many lives, ground under the treads of the Imperial machine.
Hers barely seemed worth worrying about, sometimes. But still she asked, in her darkest hours, Why me?What had the Dark Lord seen in her that made her suited to the assignment to Starkiller?
Not her conscience, surely. Nor her sunny disposition …
"Hold it right there!"
Her head came up at the sound of blasterfire closer than it had been before. Bits of droid blew past her door, smoking from their severed joints. The voice of the station commander, a man she had only met once and intensely disliked, bellowed a second time over the cacophony.
"You're not leaving this ship alive, lab rat!"
The unmistakable buzz of a lightsaber rose up from the chaos. She raised her chin higher, straining to see past the door frame.
No. It couldn't be.
The head of a stormtrooper bounced past her cell, neatly severed from the rest of its body. The armor glowed in a red oval where it had been smoothly truncated through the neck.
Perhaps …?
She shook her head, telling herself she had to be hallucinating because of the heat and failing atmosphere control. It had been so long since she had last felt hope. She didn't dare give in to it now.
Still, she didn't take her eyes off the entrance to her cell, just in case she was wrong.
She was sure she could get used to the idea this time.
The Apprentice pressed forward through a hail of blasterfire, his progress hampered by the need to protect PROXY as well as himself. The droid was adept at dueling him, but was not programmed to fight Imperials. Blasterfire came from all directions as troopers by the dozens rushed forward to replace those he had already dealt with.
Alot of these stormtroopers were of the special forces variety. These shadow troopers cloaked in and out of reality to fire upon him from a different angle.
Their determination to kill him seemed out of all proportion to their situation. Surely falling into the sun was more important than dispatching one escaped invalid.
But gradually, by overhearing their panicky comments to one another, he realized the much darker truth: that their fear of him came from rumors spread regarding his innate monstrosity, the worst of Darth Vader's experiments, which, if it got loose, would kill them all in some horribly depraved way. The rumor was a contingency prepared in case he rejected his Master's offer of a new alliance. Either way, he would have to fight his way off the ship before he could even start to think about what came next.
At the announcement that all the escape pods had been jettisoned empty, the apprentice looked over his shoulder at the droid cowering behind his spinning blade.
"PROXY? Did you launch those pods?"
"Of course, master. It pays to be thorough."
He resisted an impatient retort. "How much time do we have?"
"Just a few moments."
PROXY didn't sound worried at all. The apprentice wished he shared the droid's confidence. He had taken long enough to fight his way through halls of preserved biological specimens to the escape pod launching point. There was still one series of corridors to negotiate before they reached the air lock leading to the Rogue Shadow. Driving two stormtroopers ahead of him with the threat of Sith lightning, he pressed resolutely on.
The prison detainment area was broad and hard to defend, but a squad of troopers gamely made a go of it. Taking cover wherever they could, they fired in rapid bursts from several directions at once, hoping to find a chink in his defense. There was none. His new green blade whirled with astonishing effectiveness. It and the apprentice were one—as though his supposed death had never happened. He felt strong, powerful, deadly.
A weapon refashioned by Darth Vader to bring ruin upon the Emperor and his minions …
The leader of the squad cast insults and aspersions over the blasterfire, as though that could possibly distract him. The apprentice let the dark side flow through him, buoyed up by his anger—at the squad leader, at the time passing so quickly, at the Emperor—and calmly mowed down anyone who stood in his path.
When the last had fallen, PROXY tapped him on his shoulder.
"Master, hurry. We're rapidly approaching the sun. Life support will be overwhelmed any moment now."
"Wait," he said, raising a gloved hand. "What about—?"
Even as he looked around at the entrances to the cells, he saw her. Juno was hanging in a magnetic lock with blood dripping from her right wrist, dressed in the scruffy remains of an Imperial uniform. Her hair was unkempt and her skin dirty. Her eyes were wide with shock, taking in not just him but the ruin he had wreaked on the stormtroopers as well.
"Juno …"
"It's—" She struggled for words. "—really you!"
He understood her hesitation. She couldn't call his name because he didn't have one.
"Master," said PROXY, cutting between them. He pointed with one metal hand toward an air lock at the far end of the chamber. "We're almost there! Hurry!"
The sound of klaxons had reached a fever pitch. The ship swayed underneath him as gravitational control began to waver. The air was almost unbreathable. Even if they left now, there might barely be enough time to prep the ship and get away.
Juno's face was a picture of desperation.
He didn't move. Was this a trap? He could see no sign of deception in her face, just fear.
"Master, hurry!" PROXY tugged on his sleeve and whispered urgently. "She is part of your past life now. Leave her behind, as Lord Vader commanded!"
He pulled himself free, deciding with his heart rather than his head. "I can't. You go ahead and prepare the ship for launch. We'll follow as soon as we can."
"But, master—"
"Just do it, PROXY! That's my command."
The droid tottered off through the air lock while the apprentice deactivated his lightsaber and looked around for the magna lock generator. It had to be there somewhere, a big one, sufficient to power all the restraints in all the cells. The air was becoming fumy and thick, and the flashing lights made it hard to concentrate. Thick bundles of cables snaked along the walls and under metal grilles. He traced them as best he could to their source, a large boxy structure fixed to a wall two doors along.
He didn't have time to perform a thorough investigation. It was the right size, so he would have to chance it. Raising both hands, he sent a wave of lightning through it, causing it to blacken and smoke. Current surged along the wires, sending out showers of sparks. Juno cried out in sudden pain.
Changing tactics, he stilled the lightning, clenched his hands into fists, and ripped the box out of the wall with one single, uncompromising wrench. The machinery inside exploded, filling the air with clouds of acrid debris. Juno cried out again, but this time in relief.
He hurried to her, finding his way via the Force through the impenetrable air. She was on her hands and knees, struggling to find her feet on the uneasy floor. She clutched at him when he burst out of the smoke and pulled her upright. She weighed almost nothing.
"I saw you die," she said, staring at him with naked disbelief. "But you've come back."
Rather than make her walk, he picked her up and hurried toward the air lock.
"I have some unfinished business," he said curtly, not knowing where to begin.
"Vader?" she asked, then folded into a series of choking coughs.
"Don't worry about him," he told her. The air lock led into a narrow umbilical. Fresh air blew toward him from ahead. Heat radiated through the walls. He ducked his head and hurried toward safety.
"I've been branded a traitor to the Empire," she told him. "I can't go anywhere, do anything—"
"I don't care about any of that. I'm leaving the Empire behind." He put all the reassurance he could find into his voice. She had to believe him without question. "And I need a pilot."
She buried her face in his shoulder as the familiar walls of the Rogue Shadow enfolded them. Barely had he crossed the threshold than the air lock door slammed shut on the Empirical and explosive bolts severed the umbilical.
"Welcome aboard, master," came the voice of the droid from the cockpit.
Assuming Juno wouldn't be up to flying just yet, the apprentice called ahead of them, "Get us out of here, PROXY!"
"Yes, master."
The sub-light engines instantly engaged, and they were away.
Through the viewport of the Rogue Shadow, Juno watched as the Empirical fell behind them. Tumbling and turning, the modified cruiser's orbit had decayed beyond all hope of arresting its plunge into the sun. Barely had the Rogue Shadow detached than its outer shielding spontaneously ignited, sending waves of yellow lines creeping across the blackened hull. Without air to fuel the flames, for the moment, only metal and plastic were burning. The moment one of the viewports popped, however, the combustion began in earnest.
Her prison for six months was little more than a dark dot against the face of the sun when it suddenly flared and died. The explosion was almost anticlimactic, but it was sufficient. She unfolded her legs from beneath her, gratified to be rid of the place. Starkiller and PROXY were in the copilot's and pilot's seats, respectively. She was sitting behind them in the jump seat with a makeshift bandage around her wrist like some helpless piece of cargo. Like a passenger.
She had been hanging up like a forgotten nerf carcass for too long. It was time to take control of her life again.
She went into the back to her quarters and went to the refresher, after a nice long shower, she walked back to the cockpit. She was wearing a white tank top and her black service pants, which held onto her hips quite nicely.
"Out of my seat," she told the droid who had argued for abandoning her and letting her die with the Empirical. She felt no hard feelings for him, knowing that he had only been obeying his primary programming, but that didn't mean she had to like him.
"Yes, Captain Eclipse." He moved back into the seat she had vacated, clicking and humming to himself.
Touching the controls made her fingers tingle. She had dreamed of this moment for weeks and never dared believe it might actually come.
"What's our destination?" she asked Starkiller.
"Away from here."
"That'll do it." She keyed a jump in a random direction and leaned back into her seat. The familiar streaks of hyperspace almost made her choke. She smiled through the wave of emotion and let the ship carry them to safety.
Two jumps later, it was time to talk.
"No sign of pursuit." She put aside her scan of the surrounding space through the Rogue Shadow's superior sensors with relief. "We're light-years away from any Imperial forces."
Starkiller looked up from tending a wound on his right forearm. Blood leaked from the gash. She was relieved to see it. Thinking of the injuries he must have suffered at the hands of his former Master made her stomach feel light. Part of him had to be synthetic now, but it was impossible to tell by looking at him. Unless the new getup he had on hid more than it suggested …
"Then what's wrong?" he asked her.
She flushed, still hoping he couldn't read her mind. Putting aside one concern for another, she said, "No one knows that we exist, or what we've done. We have the entire galaxy in front of us. So why, for the first time in my life, do I have no idea where to go …?"
Her throat closed on her words. The reality of her betrayal and desertion was still sinking in.
Starkiller studied her, his eyes flickering. She would never be able to read his mind.
"I hope you have a plan," she said, clutching at her only straw.
He nodded, and then said slowly, as though sounding her out: "There are two things I want, and I can't get them on my own. The first is revenge. To get that we need to rally the Emperor's enemies behind us."
She nodded, thinking of Callos and her father. After witnessing the way Starkiller had killed the troopers on the Empirical, she had no doubt of his sincerity—or his ability to deliver. "Go on."
"The second thing I want is to learn all the things that Vader couldn't—or wouldn't—teach me about the Force."
She leaned her elbow on the arm of her flight chair and rested her chin on that hand. "If we're not careful, we might end up in our old job again—hunting Jedi."
He seemed to be aware of the irony of their situation. "I know of one who might still be alive. PROXY, show us the file of our first target."
They turned to face the droid, who flickered and transformed once more into the likeness of General Rahm Kota.
Juno frowned. "I thought you killed him."
"When I fought him in the TIE fighter factory, he said he could see my future. He said he was part of it."
She could see a thousand holes in his reasoning but had nothing better to offer. "Back to Nar Shaddaa, then."
"Back to Nar Shaddaa."
Starkiller tended his injuries while she worked on the nav computer. When they made the jump to hyperspace, he didn't even look up.
She took that as a sign of trust.
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Well folks, that was part 6 of this story.
Part 7'll be out soon.
Hope you enjoyed.
Until next time, Grubkiller out.