All eyes turned back to her.
This was the moment she had prepared for all the way from Cato Neimoidia. She wasn’t going to let it slip through her fingers.
“We’ve lost a general,” she said, “and we must mourn him. But we can’t let a setback like this knock us off course.” She said the words with a faint sense of déjà vu, remembering the traumatic times after the agreement on Kashyyyk—except then they had been Kota’s words, not hers. “We must find a replacement for him—a military leader who will rally people to our cause—someone who comes with his own resources, as Kota did, but someone who also captures the perfect balance of action and caution we need to embody, if we’re going to win this war.”
“Do you have someone in mind, Captain?” asked Mon Mothma.
She was ready for this, too. “I’ve been hearing about a Mon Calamari called Ackbar, a slave we rescued from the Eriadu system—”
“Captain Ackbar has pledged his support of the Alliance. We already have him on our side.”
“But we don’t have his people,” Juno persisted. “They were among the slaves Kota tried to free on Cato Neimoidia. If we can earn the support of the Mon Calamarians, then we get their soldiers and their ships with them. Didn’t I just hear you talking about the MC-Eighty star cruisers as I came in? Imagine if we had the resources of the entire Mon Cal shipyards at our disposal! Wouldn’t the Emperor have to sit up and take notice of us then?”
Viedas nodded, and so did Bel Iblis. “He would have no choice,” said the Senator from Corellia.
“There are no guarantees the Dac resistance movement will ever join our cause,” said Mon Mothma. “We’ve approached them several times. They remain unconvinced we mean business.”
“Actions speak louder than words,” said Bel Iblis.
“I agree,” said Juno. “A decisive strike against the Empire on Dac, with the support of Captain Ackbar, and they’ll come around for sure. It’s exactly the opportunity we need.”
“And what if it goes wrong?” asked Mon Mothma. “What if this mission fails, as Kota’s did, and we lose Ackbar, as well? Then we’d be even worse off than we are now.”
Juno felt some of the frustration that must have boiled inside Kota, ever since the optimistic early days of the Alliance. She wasn’t afraid for herself and the fate of her career. The Alliance itself was at stake now, bound up in endless bickering and disputes.
“Princess,” she said, “you’re very quiet.”
Leia looked up at her. “I don’t feel that I can offer an opinion without further consultation.”
“But your father has the deciding vote, and you represent him, so—”
“So I would like to consult with him before I cast that vote, if you don’t mind.”
The firmness of the rebuff took Juno by surprise. She had felt sure that Leia’s opinion would be the same as hers. It was she, after all, who had cemented the agreement on Kashyyyk, she who had chosen his family’s crest to represent the hope they all had felt, then, for the future.
It didn’t help that Bel Iblis looked as frustrated as Juno felt.
“We mustn’t rush in, Juno,” said Mon Mothma, her tone ameliorating now that it was clear she had the upper hand. “Kota has barely been gone a day, and threats close in on all sides. Let us choose carefully. Let’s not be blinded as Kota was by the dream of an easy victory. We learned the hard way that this will never be our lot.”
Juno knew she was thinking of the Death Star, still lurking somewhere in an unknown state of readiness. They had come so close to the Emperor and failed to take him down. Had they only succeeded then, they would never have been having this conversation.
Juno forced herself to use the only name she could bear to think of him as, anymore.
“You wouldn’t be saying that if Starkiller were here.”
Mon Mothma’s expression hardened. “He’s not here, so the point is irrelevant.”
“I think you’ve said enough, Captain Eclipse,” interrupted Commodore Viedas with a pronounced Rodian lisp. “Leave us now, while we discuss what happens next.”
“I’m prepared to resign my commission over this,” Juno said, reaching up to tug off the four red pips of her captain’s insignia. The very thought of it pained her, but to stand aside and do nothing, to wait while a golden opportunity slipped them by …
“Don’t be so hasty,” said the commodore. “We might well court-martial you first.”
She dropped her hands to her sides, feeling nothing but defeat. Of course: That was what he had meant by what happens next. Adding impulsive defiance to her case wasn’t going to help the matter of her disobedience with regard to orders.
“Yes, sir,” she said, snapping off a quick salute. “I await your decision.”
“Corporal Sparks will show you to the officers’ mess.”
The door opened behind her, and she exited quickly, without glancing at Mon Mothma or Leia. Garm Bel Iblis gave her an encouraging look, but he was as powerless as she was, outvoted by his co-leaders of the Alliance and hemmed in by logistical realities. Without ships, they couldn’t fight; if they couldn’t fight, they’d never get any more ships. At this rate, the Rebellion would either tear itself apart or die of attrition before another year was out.
She was shown to the mess by a bright-eyed young woman who looked barely old enough to be a private, let alone a corporal. Advancement came quickly in any movement afflicted by heavy losses. In the mess, Juno was offered refreshments and a chance to rest, but she declined everything. She simply stared out the viewport at the vistas of molten Nkllon and its fiery sun. She imagined that she could feel the heat even through half a meter of transparisteel, burning her defenses away.
Finally she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to find none other than Commodore Viedas standing behind her.
“I thought I’d better come myself to give you the news,” he said. “I’m sorry, Captain, but we’re standing you down from the Salvation. The demotion is only temporary, while Senator Mothma goes over the case again, and may not last longer than a day or two. Both of you just need an opportunity to cool down. I hope you understand.”
She bit down on her disappointment and the urge to argue. Viedas was going out of his way to explain, something he was under no compunction to do. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“In the meantime, the Princess sent you this,” he added, patting the head of a blue-and-white astromech droid she hadn’t even noticed at his side. “She hopes that you will put it to good use.”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“She understands that you have a faulty droid in your possession. He’s being brought from the Salvation as we speak. The corporal will show you to a maintenance suite that has been put at your disposal. You have the time to see to your droid now, and I suggest you don’t waste it.”
With that, he left her. Juno watched him go, frowning. What did he care about her droid? What did the Princess?
“Is it possible,” she asked herself, “that I’m dreaming all this?”
The R2 unit burbled something electronic she couldn’t understand. It didn’t help.
“This way,” said the perky corporal, reappearing at her side.
“After you,” Juno told her. The R2 trundled patiently in their wake.
PROXY was already waiting for her when she arrived, stretched out on an examination table in a private workshop. His familiar, skeletal form was dented and scarred by countless rough patch jobs and the occasional field welding. His yellow eyes were extinguished now, as they had been for months. Just seeing him made her uncomfortable for reasons she found difficult to express, even to herself. Surely she should be over it all by now?
“Let’s fire him up,” she told the R2 unit when the corporal had gone, “and see what you can do.”
She reached a hand into PROXY’s innards to reactivate his power supply, but instead of moving to help her, the R2 unit rolled back a step and projected a hologram onto the floor between them.
>
“I apologize for the deception, Juno,” a miniature version of Princess Leia told her. The recording had been taken not long ago: She was still wearing the clothes she had worn to Juno’s interview; only the background had changed. “I hope you’ll forgive me for not standing up for you before. I cannot speak freely, even when I know what my father would have me say. While he is in hiding, it’s my job to keep the Alliance together, and I know you appreciate how hard a job that is. Mon Mothma is my friend and teacher; I would not defy her openly, when we all know that what she says is at least in part correct. We must proceed cautiously. But at the same time, we must act decisively. No agreement is possible—so it’s better that she doesn’t know what you are about to do.”
Juno squatted down in front of the hologram, feeling a faint revival of hope within her.
“Artoo-Detoo here will do what he can for your droid,” the Princess went on. “You’ll need help convincing the Mon Calamari and the Quarren to join our cause, even with Ackbar on your side. I’ve arranged for one agent of the Organa household to meet you and PROXY at Dac’s Moon and coordinate the rendezvous, but that’s all the help I can spare you, I’m afraid. From here on, it’s up to you.” She smiled. “I’d wish you good luck, Juno, but I’m hoping you won’t need it.”
With that, the recording fizzled out, looped back to the beginning, and started to play itself again.
“That’s enough,” Juno told the R2 unit.
She settled back onto her haunches to think.
Leia wanted her to bring the Mon Calamari to the Alliance table without Mon Mothma learning of it. Did Garm Bel Iblis know? Probably not, since he was elsewhere in the galaxy and even private transmissions could be overheard. But Commodore Viedas had to be part of the scheme. It was he who decided how officers in his attack group were disciplined—in Juno’s case by relieving her of her command—and he who had delivered the droid to her. He was definitely a conspirator in the plan to give Juno not just the means to complete this mission, but the opportunity.
Yet without the Salvation behind her, she wondered, what could she possibly achieve in the fight against the Empire?
She snorted at her own cowardice. What couldn’t she achieve, without that great lumbering mass of responsibility hanging over her head? Kota had been a master of this kind of work, employing small teams of handpicked militia in fast strikes to achieve well-defined outcomes. If he could do it, so could she.
“Hello, Juno,” said a familiar voice from the table. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you again.”
She braced herself to look at PROXY, but the sight still came as a shock.
Sitting on the table was a perfect replica of him. Of Starkiller. Of the man she had loved, who was now stone-dead—but re-created down to the last detail by the droid that had served him.
“Artoo-Detoo, was it?”
The droid beeped happily.
“See what you can do to fix his faulty holographic circuits,” she ordered. “His primary programming is gone, too, but I can live with that if you can fix the other. It’s been getting worse, ever since we found him on Corellia.”
“Thank you,” said the perfect image of Starkiller as the R2 unit moved in. He was wearing the same Jedi uniform the real one had worn during the attack on the Death Star. “I am aware that I cause you distress. It would please me to serve you again, as my master wished.”
“Stop,” she said, raising a hand and turning away. “Just stop.”
“Yes, Captain Eclipse.”
She held her breath until the little droid went to work, and the crackling of an electric arc banished all possibility of conversation.
CHAPTER 3
Present day …
CATO NEIMOIDIA’S ORBITAL LANES buzzed with nervous activity. A strong Imperial presence vied with a steady flow of freighters to and fro, many of them escorted by TIE fighter or mercenary squadrons. Even from orbit, Starkiller could see evidence of recent military activity, particularly a deep black scorch mark near one of the planet’s famous hanging cities. Some kind of heavy munitions had been in play, although probably not nuclear. There was no sign of evacuation of the nearby populace.
Starkiller had never had cause to come to this world before, not during his brief period of recruitment for the nascent rebellion, nor during his first apprenticeship to Darth Vader, when his role had been as much assassin as apprentice. Indeed, surviving and defeating those who challenged his former Master had been as important a part of his former self’s training as anything on the Executor. Those challengers had been his first real targets, apart from PROXY droids. Only when he had proven himself capable had the Dark Lord deemed him worthy of combat with him.
Starkiller orbited Cato Neimoidia once, safe in Darth Vader’s TIE fighter, and simply stared. He had been down a pit on Kamino for thirteen days, and in Vader’s clutches for what felt like a lifetime. He had forgotten what sunlight looked like. He had forgotten what it felt like to be a free agent. There was so much he had forgotten, and so much that was slowly coming back to him.
Juno.
She felt strangely close, even though he had no reason to suspect that she was nearby. In his mind, she was coming clearer with every hour. He couldn’t believe that she had almost slipped away. Oh, he understood it well enough. He knew all about Darth Vader’s mind games and the power of the dark side. He had lived with it, and prospered from that, too, in his original lifetime. He could exert his will over others in order to get what he wanted, but he didn’t doubt that … didn’t doubt that Vader had almost succeeded in driving every last memory of the woman Starkiller had loved from his mind.
Now she was back, and it seemed incomprehensible to him that she had ever gone away. Even when he had lost everything in his former life, when every last hope of victory had been taken from him, he had thought of her. His demise had meant nothing compared with the knowledge that she had escaped safely from the Emperor’s deadly space station.
Then … death. And revival. And forgetting, powerlessness, and fear.
But now he was back. Nothing could stand between him and Juno. Not for long, anyway. With her ahead of him, leading him on, he felt stronger than ever.
From the depths of his memory, he heard the murdered Jedi Master Shaak Ti: “You could be so much more.”
Then his own voice, speaking not to her, but to Juno, in another place, another time: “The Force is stronger than anything we can imagine. We’re the ones who limit it, not the other way around.”
Starkiller breathed deeply and closed his eyes. His mind was just one speck in the endlessly shifting sea that was the galaxy. He felt the eddies and currents of the combined life force of every living thing sway through him—and with only a small effort he detached himself from himself and joined that flow, seeking the one he needed.
The roar of a crowd filled his mind. Movement scattered his mental vision, made it hard to make out anything specific. Was that fluttering wings, or banners? He couldn’t quite tell. Figures that might have been beings glowed blue all around him. Above him hung a giant eye, staring downward.
Are you still with me, Kota?
His vision shifted, became red-tinged—deeply red, as though someone had cut the throat of a giant beast and drained it onto the ground. Something snarled. Something roared. There was a flurry of limbs, a wild rush of violent intent.
“It’s all in your mind, boy,” said Kota from his memory.
Green light flashed. More blood. Severed limbs fell onto the dirt. The crowd roared.
General Rahm Kota, leaning back on his heels, breathing heavily, surrounded by a ring of corpses. How long had he been fighting now? Six days? Seven? Fatigue was taking its toll. With every wave he came closer to making a mistake—and when that happened, it would all finally be over.
Starkiller opened his eyes. His lips were pressed into a thin line.
“Hold on, old man,” he whispered, and brought Darth Vader’s TIE fighter smoothly out of orbit.
His ship had been noticed the very moment he had arrived. On descent, it was immediately joined by a full escort of TIE fighters, acting on the assumption that the being piloting it was Darth Vader, the Emperor’s chief enforcer, as its transponder code suggested. Starkiller didn’t disabuse them of this notion. Anything that eased the path ahead was fine by him. The TIEs broadcast warnings and cleared a landing bay ahead of him, and then peeled off to resume their regular duties. He brought his stolen starfighter safely to a halt on the swaying platform, conscious but not caring that there was nothing between him and the sinkhole below but several layers of metal. It might intimidate others, but it made no difference to him.
Several skiffs parked on the platform had scattered as he approached the waiting hangar. A squadron of stormtroopers stood to attention in two perfectly parallel lines, their weapons honorific, not threatening. If Vader had guessed that he was coming here, word had not yet reached the local potentate. That was good.
He landed, shut down the engines with smooth efficiency, and climbed out of the pilot’s seat. The hatch opened with a hiss. His booted feet hit the hot metal of the landing deck with a ringing boom.
A new person had arrived, a balding man dressed in heavy robes with Imperial insignia mixed with Neimoidian trappings, standing at the head of the double line of troopers. He looked nervous, but that soon turned to puzzlement as Starkiller strode into view.
Starkiller realized only then how he must have looked. The flight suit he wore was torn and filthy, thanks to weeks in Vader’s pit and ceaseless combat training. In the former Starkiller’s life, he had had the art of stealth and invisibility drummed into him, but he was in too much of a hurry now to worry about that.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Page 4