Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

by Williams, Sean

  With a gentle thud, the metal surfaces of the two ships met. The cargo shuttle’s hatch slid closed. Juno took her hands off the controls and waited.

  When the space inside the shuttle had repressurized, a small hatch opened and a tall human male stepped out of the crew chambers. He wore a gray-green pressure suit, minus its helmet, and could have been any one of a million unskilled cargo shufflers from anywhere across the galaxy.

  Only he wasn’t. Juno recognized him the moment the R-22’s landing lights caught his features.

  It was Bail Organa.

  The starfighter’s hatch swung open above her, and he helped her out of the pilot’s seat.

  “You’re a little overqualified for this, aren’t you?” she said.

  His Serene Highness, Prince Bail Prestor Organa, First Chairman and Viceroy of Alderaan, patted down his oil-smudged outfit. “What, haulage, or convincing the Dac resistance to join the Alliance?”

  “Maybe both.”

  “Well, I offered you a job once, and you said you’d think about it.”

  “You called me a pilot with a conscience,” she said. “I’d never work for someone with such poor judgment of character.”

  They grinned and shook hands.

  “Nice to see you, too, PROXY,” he added as the droid unfolded from his own seat. “Come on through.”

  “So this is how you stay out of the Emperor’s scopes,” Juno said as he led them into the cramped, ozone-stinking cockpit. He was the shuttle’s only occupant.

  “Part of the time.” He tapped the outdated instrument panel with some affection. “In this I can go practically anywhere, anytime, and no one gives me a second look. Same with this.” He indicated the mirror-finished helmet hanging on a rack behind the pilot’s chair. “Cheaper than a cloaking device, and no messing around with stygium crystals.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Oh, yes, you’ve had experience with them, on the Rogue Shadow.” He sobered. “I heard about Kota. That’s terrible news.”

  She took the copilot’s seat. “It was bound to happen eventually. The man had crazy luck, but it couldn’t last forever.”

  “He made his own luck. As we’re about to.”

  He operated the controls with the ease of recent practice, lifting the cargo shuttle off the surface of the moon with the starfighter safely inside and sending it on a long arc around to the Dac-lit side. Juno noted with approval that he didn’t fly too well: Anyone watching would see the occasional jerk and misdirection, as they would expect from a clumsy grunt.

  “I presume Leia explained the situation,” she said.

  He nodded. “We’re meeting Ackbar in an hour.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “We don’t have one yet.”

  “Where’s the rendezvous point, then?”

  “A mining colony called Sar Galva.”

  “Sar Galva is located on the Murul Trench,” said PROXY. “We are not designed for aquatic environments.”

  “No, but the Quarren are, and we need them if we’re ever going to get the Dac resistance movement into the Alliance.”

  Dac rose over the moon’s forward horizon—a crystalline blue world streaked with high-altitude clouds. The cargo shuttle glided slowly upward until it broke free of the moon’s gentle gravitational pull and began powering for the planet. Its main drive was inefficient and noisy, making conversation difficult. Juno settled back into the seat, thinking over everything she’d learned about the world and its resistance movement before leaving the Solidarity.

  Home to numerous sentient species, although predominantly the deep-ocean Quarren and the semi-aquatic Mon Calamari, Dac had a long history of conflict with the Empire. With the Declaration of a New Order and the beginning of the Imperial regime, their Senators had been arrested and a new, corrupt regime had been installed, helped by indigenous collaborators who had sabotaged Dac’s planetary shield. The takeover of the shipyards and the subjugation of the native population hadn’t broken the planet’s spirit, however. A resistance movement had struggled on for many years, and then foundered when the Empire destroyed three of the planet’s floating cities in reprisal. Since then, Quarren and Mon Calamari had squabbled more often than they had worked together, and the Empire’s grip on their homeworld remained crushingly tight.

  Ackbar had been one of the failed resistance movement’s earliest and most promising leaders. So impressive had been his fight against the Imperial forces that the officer who had eventually captured him had presented him as a trophy to the Grand Moff in charge of the occupation, who had kept him as a slave for more than a decade. Rescued in one of the Rebel Alliance’s earliest coordinated attacks against the Empire, Ackbar had returned to Dac to stir up revolt—and met surprising resistance. Discredited by historians, their shipyards nationalized, and their leaders enslaved, the population of Dac had very nearly lost their spirit. It would take a show of strength to whip them into the proper frame of mind to retake their world.

  The shuttle rocked from side to side as it hit atmosphere. Organa pulled back on the throttle, allowing them to talk again.

  “Dac has no aerial defenses to speak of,” Organa said. “The planetary shields have never been repaired, and the remaining cities suffer constant bombardment. An entire fighter wing is stationed here, its mission to terrorize and to crush any signs of an air force forming. Ackbar has tried, but he can’t get so much as a recon droid in the air without it being shot down and his equipment destroyed.”

  “So where do the Quarren fit into this? They live underwater, not in the air.”

  “The fighter wing only patrols the air, not the oceans, and particularly not the deep trenches. By following those trenches, the Quarren can go anywhere without being seen. They can construct supply lines, establish headquarters, even build submersible launch platforms that would be less vulnerable to attack than anything on the ground. With the Quarren on their side, the Mon Calamari would have a real chance.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Ahead of them, the ocean was rising up rapidly to meet them. Organa did nothing to slow their descent. All he did was tip the shuttle in order to present the smallest possible cross section to the approaching wave tops. At the last instant he fired the forward thrusters on full, not to stop the shuttle but to turn the water ahead of them to steam, cushioning the impact.

  Even so, Juno was thrown forward against her harness. A rushing, swirling sound enfolded them, and the deck rocked beneath their feet. The main drive cut out and repulsors kicked in. Instead of pushing up, they pressed the shuttle down against the resistance of the water.

  Her ears popped as they dropped rapidly into the depths. Darkness fell outside. The shuttle’s many joints and seams creaked under the rising pressure.

  Juno felt queasy but refused to let it show.

  “I’m guessing,” she said, “that the plan is for the resistance to take out the fighter wing and thereby show the locals what they’re capable of.”

  “Spot-on, Captain.”

  “What’s the wing’s designation? Would I have heard of them?”

  “Quite possibly. It’s the Hundred Eighty-first.”

  She shook her head. “Never come across them before. Just be glad it’s not the Black Eight.”

  “Your old command?”

  “I’m sure it’s gone downhill since I left,” she said, “but I doubt its methods have improved.”

  She thought of the forests of Callos melting into black sludge and tried not to imagine what Dac would look like after such an attack. Oceans were different from forests, but the principle was the same. Where life got in the way of the Emperor’s plans, its very existence was forfeit.

  The scopes showed the hard surface of the seabed approaching. Undulating hills punctuated by the occasional sharp spire stretched off into the murky distance, covered with fields of thick, waving weeds. Organa leveled off and headed north. They hadn’t traveled far when an
enormous chasm opened up before them. The Murul Trench, Juno presumed. Clinging to its side was an artificial structure that projected out over the depths. Several thick cables and pipes stretched vertically downward. What lay at the bottom, Juno couldn’t tell. The scopes didn’t even show a bottom.

  “Welcome to Sar Galva,” Organa said as he guided the shuttle to a halt near a docking tube. “This is nominally an Imperial station, but just in case …” He handed her a fake ID, which she affixed to her flight uniform. “If anyone asks, my name is Aman Raivans. You’re Pyn Robahn.”

  When the docking tube was empty of water and full of breathable atmosphere, they headed back to the air lock and cycled through. Juno stepped warily into the station, testing the air and finding it more than a little fishy. Literally. Sar Galva stank like an aquarium that hadn’t been cleaned for a decade.

  Organa led the way. PROXY took up the rear. They passed a checkpoint without incident and headed deeper into the station through a maze of tubes and spherical-shaped compartments. Vast machines chugged and bubbled all around them. Juno didn’t have the first idea what the station extracted from the depths; fearing that asking might expose her as an outsider, she stayed quiet.

  They passed several bulging-eyed Mon Calamari, but by far the majority of workers here were Quarren, with their tentacled faces and clawed hands. Juno didn’t suffer from speciesism as many of her old Imperial colleagues had, but she was still getting used to the variety of beings she encountered through the Alliance. Mon Calamari looked cheerfully guileless to her, while the Quarren were utterly unreadable. The language they used when talking to one another was unlike any other speech she had ever heard. She hoped the individuals she would be dealing with could at least understand Basic.

  “Through here, I think,” said Organa, waving her ahead of him into a cramped mess.

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Let’s just say that down here, everything’s uncertain.”

  The room contained a long table and several individuals. Five orange-skinned Quarren huddled in a group at the far end. Closest to them was a slender Mon Calamari who looked up as they entered. Juno recognized him instantly from holos.

  “Senator Organa,” Ackbar said, reaching out with one long-fingered hand. “Thank you for coming. And you must be Captain Eclipse.”

  Juno returned the handshake. Ackbar’s skin was damp and cool, and his grip surprisingly strong.

  “Don’t close the door,” he said to PROXY, who had turned to do just that. “We’re expecting someone else.” The five Quarren looked up, and he introduced them in turn as Siric, Nosaj, Rarl, Cuvran, and Feril. “Siric is an underwater explosives expert,” Ackbar explained. “He lost his family during the destruction of the Three Cities. He and his assistants are keen to help in any way they can.”

  “We’re grateful to you for meeting us here,” said Organa, offering them a brisk bow. “I’m as keen to see your planet freed as you are.”

  The Quarren exchanged a handful of short words, none of them in Basic.

  “Are they always this conversational?” asked Juno.

  “Don’t be discouraged,” said Ackbar. “They’re a brave and proud people, like my own, when roused.”

  A tenth person came into the room from behind them, and instantly the five Quarren were on their feet, bulbous eyes staring, tentacles waving and fingers pointing. They tongue-spat and snarled in their alien tongue, as much at Ackbar as to the new arrival, who was another Quarren, as impenetrable as the rest.

  “This was a mistake,” this one said in heavily accented Basic. “I knew I should not have come.”

  “Stay, Seggor, stay.” Ackbar put a hand on the Quarren’s arm and turned to the others. “He’s here at my invitation,” he told the others. “Don’t you think I have as much to be angry about as you?”

  An uneasy silence fell. Juno studied the dynamic closely as the newcomer eased farther into the room and Ackbar encouraged everyone to sit with him at the table. He introduced the people who didn’t know one another in a matter-of-fact way, downplaying the dramatics with his brisk, no-nonsense tone. Juno felt some of the tension ebb, even though it was never remotely close to vanishing.

  When it was Seggor Tels’s turn to be introduced, he offered a brief explanation regarding his fellows’ outrage.

  “A young fool I once was,” he said. “A fool who thought my enemy’s enemy must be my friend. It was I who sabotaged our world’s planetary shields, resulting in our home’s occupation and my people’s enslavement. In the many years since, I have learned to regret that action, and to understand that my kind is not alone in its persecution. We must put aside our differences and work together to reclaim our world. We must stand together.”

  He addressed them with a conviction that spoke more of necessity than real commitment, but Juno admired the attempt. In the face of years of animosity between his species and the Mon Calamari, plus the very personal antagonism displayed by Siric and the others, he was bravely standing his ground when it would have been much easier simply to go into hiding and never emerge.

  “We’re here to help you,” she said. “If you’ll let us.”

  Siric said something in the Quarren tongue, which Tels translated.

  “He says you’re only here to help yourselves. You care about starships, not the oceans or the people who live in them.”

  “The right of all beings to live freely and in peace,” said Organa, “is what the Rebel Alliance cares about. Ships will help us, yes, but that’s not our primary objective in coming here. We need leaders and soldiers; we need people who will spread the word; we need translators and medics and all manner of specialty. What we need most of all, though, is to know that the people we’re fighting for are behind us. We’re risking our lives—and the lives of our families—every time we so much as speak out against the Emperor. Forgive us if we ask for a little commitment in return.”

  Organa’s expression was severe, and Juno could tell that he was thinking of more than himself. Now that the Emperor knew he was a traitor, Leia was in constant jeopardy. Only a constant pretense of innocence and compliance had saved her thus far—that and the fact that even the Emperor balked at murdering such a well-known and well-liked young woman.

  Tels translated Senator Organa’s words, and some of the aggression left the five. Siric looked down at his hands, which were splayed out in front of him. Juno noticed that two of his digits were missing from his right hand. Explosives expert, she remembered, and wondered what efforts he had already made to repel the Empire from his world.

  “The Hundred Eighty-First fighter wing is based in Heurkea,” Ackbar went on, producing a datapad and displaying images as he spoke. The first was a map of the southern territorial zone, with the floating city appropriately marked. “We can approach from the east, behind the cover of Mester Reef. The Hundred Eighty-First patrols every three standard hours, in groups of two, with a ten-minute overlap, but there’s a period once every five days when all the pilots are recalled for debriefing. That can last anything up to an hour. The next such briefing is in six hours.”

  Siric said something in his native tongue.

  “I know we have no air force,” Ackbar said. “Ask yourself what a frontal assault would achieve. Reinforcements would arrive within hours, and any advantage we gained would be quickly reversed. And more. The Empire does not take kindly to insurrection.”

  “As we know all too well,” said Tels.

  “You’ve got something else in mind,” said Juno, relieved she wasn’t going to be asked to mount a single-handed assault on the fighter wing, and thinking of Siric’s missing fingers.

  Ackbar outlined the essence of the plan in a few brief sentences, and Juno learned why his mind had been so highly prized by the Grand Moff who had made him a slave. The plan was within their means, yet certain to have a far-reaching effect on the Imperial forces in the region. If it succeeded, they were bound to galvanize the resistance into a single force. If it failed, no
one would ever know.

  “I like it,” she said. “Count me in.”

  “And I,” said Tels.

  All eyes turned to Siric and his assistants, who conferred in a series of hurried whispers. Siric asked Tels a question, and he translated it for the benefit of Juno and Bail Organa.

  “Siric wishes to know how he can be sure that he can trust you.”

  “He can’t,” said Ackbar. “He can only take as a form of assurance the fact that I will be fighting alongside him.”

  “We all go down together, in other words,” Juno said, “or we all give up and go home.”

  The Quarren conferred again, and this time they agreed. Five nods indicated their willingness to be part of the mission.

  “Thank you,” Ackbar said. “We will never forget your decision today.”

  “Neither will the Rebel Alliance,” said Organa. He glanced at his chrono. “Six hours, you said, Ackbar? If we’re going to make that window, we’d better get started.”

  “You’re coming with us?” Juno asked him.

  “Of course. I didn’t come here just to make introductions and pretty speeches.”

  “But you’re not trained for this kind of work. I wouldn’t want to answer to your daughter if you were killed.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Captain Eclipse,” he said with an expression that was part smile, part grimace. “I think you’ll find that I can handle myself.”

  Juno didn’t press. Organa’s experiences with the Emperor stretched farther back even than the formation of the Empire itself. No one lasted that long on luck alone, she supposed.

  Ackbar stood and, with a powerful sense of gravitas, shook hands with Seggor Tels. Only then did the mission truly get under way.

  CHAPTER 5

  Present day …

  STARKILLER STARED UP in awe at the massive beast that emerged from the shadows. All muscle and bone and teeth and claws, it walked with a hunched, thundering gait that made the stone beneath him shake. Its thick, powerful legs looked disproportionately small compared with the reach of its arms, but the strength they contained—capable of propping up a creature larger than most spacecraft and actually propelling it, too—was almost beyond comprehension. Were it to raise itself upright, its hands would brush the arena’s distant ceiling.