And yet … Confidence, determination, intelligence, and cunning—combined with physical strength and agility—the clones possessed every attribute he did, in greater or lesser degrees. He saw in their faces the same confusion he felt. They were all clones, so who was he to stand out from among them? What special qualities set him apart?
Who was Starkiller, in this mass of faces and bodies?
A desperate rage built up inside him. What if what he felt was nothing but a lingering imprint left behind by the first Starkiller? Did he cling to his feelings with all the more desperation because deep down he knew they were counterfeit? “The memories of a dead man,” Vader had called them, blaming them for the torment and confusion he had felt. “They will fade,” Vader had promised, but they had not. Did the other clones experience the same hopes and fears? Were their experiences any less worthy than his?
“Destroy what he created … hate what he loved … be strong …” That was the command Vader had given him, on threat of death. But who was the deliverer of that death? Wasn’t he the one delivering to the clones the very fate that he had feared? Had they all been given the same ultimatum?
“You will receive the same treatment as the others.”
Death by lightsaber, at his own hand. Perhaps this macabre free-for-all was Vader’s way of weeding out the imperfect stock. The last one left standing would be considered the perfect Starkiller, the one who would take his place at Vader’s side. Perhaps that was his plan.
“You have faced your final test,” Vader had told a victorious version of himself in the vision he had received on the Salvation. Maybe the vision he had received on Dagobah had warned him of a very real trial, not the metaphorical one he had imagined it to be.
The dark side awaited his call. But if this was his final test, then he would not fail. There was too much riding on it. If he gave in to temptation and became Darth Vader’s apprentice once more, then it was clear from the vision that Juno would die. She was the whole reason he had escaped, and then returned. He would not turn his back on that, even to survive.
He sought strength from within himself, and pushed outward with all his might. Clones went flying. The empty tubes from which they had emerged shattered into millions of pieces. Platforms buckled and fell with reverberant crashes. The interior of the cloning tower rang as though struck with a giant hammer. Every muscle in his body shook with the effort of it.
The echoes faded, and he felt a peculiar kind of quiet descend. The air was misted red, and every surface was slick with blood. He tasted it on his tongue and smelled it in his nose. His blood. A veritable ocean of it.
He maintained a defensive pose, breathing rhythmically and deeply, regaining his strength. The tips of his lightsabers shook. He had never felt so exhausted, at every level of his being. He felt simultaneously cleansed and poisoned.
Nothing moved. Slowly, incredulously, he began to believe that it was over.
They were all dead. He had destroyed every last one of them. He was the only one left—of the many Darth Vader had created to do his bidding.
“Why me?” he asked the silent cloning tower.
“Search your feelings,” Vader said, stepping into view at the very top of the tower, lightsaber held tightly in his right hand. “The answer lies within you.”
Starkiller stared up at his former Master. What did he have that none of the other clones did?
He remembered:
“How long this time?”
“Thirteen days. Impressive.”
And he remembered:
“The Force gives me all I need.”
“The Force?”
“The dark side, I mean.”
Slowly a dark understanding began to form. All the duels, all the tests, all the torturous mind games, had been to ensure his survival against every opponent—bar one. His Master. In a sense, they were still playing out the first time they had faced each other in combat.
He didn’t remember the early days of his apprenticeship, when the memories of his parents had been strong and the young boy he had once been resisted Vader’s absolute authority, but he was sure the battle had been even then, psychological. The battle would never cease until one of them won.
Was this what it was like to be a Sith? Forever at war with one’s own Master?
“Your training made me strong enough to escape you,” he said, “not obey you.”
“Yet here you are.” Darth Vader’s words fell on him like heavy weights. “My most deadly creation.”
“You lie!” Starkiller jumped up to the next platform, passion stirring him to action. “You never wanted this. You can’t have. Once Juno has been rescued, your facility will be destroyed. You with it, if there’s any justice.”
“There is no justice,” said Darth Vader, watching him ascend. “Only power.”
Vader made no move to defend himself when Starkiller reached the very top of the cloning tower. Determined to prove him wrong, Starkiller didn’t waste time announcing his intentions. He just lunged. Only at the very last moment did Vader raise his blade to block the blow, and even then the move seemed almost casual, disinterested. Starkiller struck again, with both lightsabers. Vader blocked one blade and used telekinesis to throw the other off target. The platform buckled and twisted, sending Starkiller flying.
He rolled and leapt, and came up swinging. Covered in blood—the blood of his fellow clones—and knowing Juno was close, he fought his former Master with single-minded focus. Vader was still testing him; he sensed that more and more keenly, with every passing moment, but to what purpose he still couldn’t tell. Vader himself fought more cautiously than he had on the Death Star, the last time they had dueled in earnest. His armor seemed to have improved, too; it was less vulnerable to lightning than it had been just days before.
Vader threw wrecked platforms and cloning tubes at him, while he scored three slashes to the Dark Lord’s cape in return. They circled the top of the cloning tower, striking and assessing, then striking again.
Starkiller swore that he would not give in to anger or frustration. If that was what Darth Vader wanted, he wasn’t going to get it. The only emotion he would give in to was love.
Finally, Starkiller saw an opportunity. They were exchanging rapid blows along the edge of the buckled platform, blades swinging so fast they were visible only as blurs. Vader’s defenses were impenetrable; his lightsaber seemed to arrive a split second before Starkiller’s, every time. He may have defeated Vader before, but Vader had learned from that mistake. He knew the measure of his former apprentice now.
But the same was true in reverse. And when Vader forced Starkiller onto his back foot and raised his lightsaber to strike him down, Starkiller fired a lightning blast into the side of Vader’s armor that was so concentrated, even the new insulation couldn’t absorb it.
The Dark Lord stiffened, betrayed by his extensive prosthetics. The distraction lasted only a moment, but it was enough. Starkiller knocked his blade out of the way and moved in to strike.
Juno lying limp in his arms.
The vision struck him as powerfully as a physical blow. When he tried to push it aside, it returned with even more power.
Juno—dead.
He reeled in shock. Was this what would happen if he killed Vader? He had no choice but to believe so. But if he didn’t kill Vader, how would he ever get to her?
The Dark Lord took advantage of his momentary confusion. He delivered a telekinetic shove that threw Starkiller backward off the platform and down to the lower levels of the ruined cloning tower. The blow and the fall had the welcome effect of clearing his mind. He turned in midair and landed on his feet. An instant later he was leaping upward again, his face a mask of determination.
Whatever happened to Juno, he saw no choice but to confront Darth Vader. The Dark Lord had killed his father, betrayed him at least once, and would kill Juno the very second she was of no more use to him. Their time of reckoning was long overdue.
The attainment
of his true mastery of the Force—the destiny Darth Vader so often threatened him with—could only come one way. He saw that now. His final test was to kill Vader himself.
When he reached the top level, Vader was disappearing behind the doors of another turbolift. Starkiller ripped them open, but the cab had already begun to ascend. He had no intention of waiting for it to return. He braced himself on the inside of the shaft, and jumped.
One powerful leap saw him rising almost as fast as the cab. He reached telekinetically for its underside, and caught it. When the cab started to slow, he approached close enough to physically hold on to the underside, and raised one lightsaber to cut his way through.
The cab jerked to a halt. Vader was already gone by the time Starkiller emerged through a circular hole in the floor. Outside the cab wasn’t another cloning tower. A short ramp led up to the roof of the spire itself, currently out of sight. Starkiller emerged from the cab, a tightness in his chest telling him that Juno was very close now. Very close indeed. She was exactly where he had last seen her.
It was raining.
The dome had been breached. All around him, the fight between the Rebels and Imperials waged on. Wrecked starfighters tumbled from the sky in flames. Debris gushed out of wounded frigates. A listing Star Destroyer vented air and bodies in huge quantities. Across the facility, dozens of dark columns of smoke formed a thick veil of carbonized ash, choking the air. A constant high-frequency pulsation of energy weapons came from all around him, punctuated by the occasional bass explosion. It was impossible to tell who was winning.
Wary of an ambush, Starkiller walked up the ramp. As he did so, Darth Vader came into view. The Dark Lord stood with his lightsaber extinguished in the center of the roof. Behind him, partially obscured by their lord, were four stormtroopers with weapons held at the ready.
“Get out of my way,” he said.
“Your memories betray you,” Darth Vader said.
“They make me who I am.”
“You must turn your back on them in order to become who you will be.”
Starkiller stopped in his tracks. Was that why Darth Vader burdened him with everything the original Starkiller had been—to demonstrate his strength and commitment by dismissing it, his former self with it? Or was there still some other motive that he couldn’t discern?
Of only one thing was he certain. He wouldn’t turn his back on Juno for any incentive.
“Never,” he said.
“Then she will die.”
Darth Vader stepped aside, revealing Juno in shackles. He gestured, and the four stormtroopers surrounding her raised their weapons and fired as one.
CHAPTER 24
WHEN DARTH VADER WALKED onto the roof, the stormtroopers stood to immediate attention. Juno straightened, too, but not out of respect. She didn’t know what was coming, but she swore she would be ready for it. The strange sounds coming from below—the screams and clash of lightsabers—had encouraged her to hope that it would be Starkiller who came to her first, but that was dashed now. If he was dead, then Vader would surely have no reason to keep her alive.
Her guards’ comlinks chattered too faintly for her to make out the words. Orders, she assumed, from the Dark Lord. They nodded and took new positions, two on either side of her. Then they all turned to face their Master, and he turned his back on them.
For a second, the world paused. The fighting around the spires seemed to lessen. Even the conflict in the sky grew still. She felt as though everyone in Kamino was looking in her direction—although surely, she knew, they didn’t even see her. It was all about Vader and Starkiller—if the man she had loved was still alive.
Footsteps came up the ramp. She strained against her bonds, but Vader was directly in her line of sight. She couldn’t see past him.
She could hear, though, and she would recognize his voice under any conditions, just like the Rogue Shadow.
“Get out of my way,” he said to Vader.
“Your memories betray you.”
“They make me who I am.”
“You must turn your back on them in order to become who you will be.”
“Never,” he said.
Vader stepped to one side, and past the swirling of his cloak, Juno saw him—Starkiller—and for an instant she didn’t see the blood all over him or the tattered state of his flight uniform. All she saw was his eyes. And they in turn saw nothing but her.
“Then she will die,” Vader said, raising one hand in a signal to her guards.
They raised their weapons, took aim, and fired.
It happened so fast she barely had time to flinch. Vader had been keeping her alive for so long now that it didn’t seem entirely real that he would dispose of her so suddenly. She jerked forward as far as the shackles allowed her, straining to get away. Every muscle in her body tensed in readiness.
The weapons’ muzzles flashed—
—and at that very instant a massive force struck her and the guards, flinging her backward so hard she thought her chains might break her wrists. The stormtroopers effectively disappeared, swept off the top of the spire in an instant. The shots they had fired all missed, deflected by the powerful force, although one burned her right cheek as it went by. The four energy bursts followed wild trajectories, outward across the crowded sky.
“Juno!”
Her shackles fell to the ground with a heavy clatter.
Alive but winded, she couldn’t reply. She could barely even believe she was alive. She had caught just the fringe of the push that had killed the guards, and she knew that even so she had almost been killed herself.
A different force gripped her, one no less powerful than the first, but aimed at her, not at anything else. It gripped her cruelly about the throat and lifted her so her feet barely touched the ground.
“Bow before me,” said Vader to the man she loved.
Starkiller took a step forward. The force gripped her even more tightly, closing her windpipe. She choked, kicking out and finding no ground at all beneath her now. Her hands pulled at her throat, but there was nothing there to grip, and no way to fight it.
“Juno!”
She heard the furious despair in Starkiller’s voice, and understood that he was fighting for her, and losing.
“Bow before me,” Vader repeated, “or she dies.”
Don’t, she wanted to say. Don’t do it. You’ve been down that path before. You know where it leads you. But she couldn’t speak. She could barely even see him. Black dots were crowding out her vision as her oxygen-starved optic nerve began to fail. Don’t let him trick you again.
He couldn’t possibly hear her, but she suspected it wouldn’t make any difference. In his shoes, she would be tempted to give in, too. After all they had been through, after all they might have been but had been denied, they at last had a second chance. Arguably that was worth more than any political movement or philosophy. So long as they survived, their love would survive. Nothing else mattered.
She understood, but she felt no relief as Darth Vader’s terrible grip loosened and she fell painfully to the ground. Cool air rushed into her lungs. She coughed as though retching, feeling pain all along her windpipe.
Over the sound of her hacking and wheezing, she heard two metallic clinks and looked up to see what had happened.
Starkiller had deactivated his lightsabers and thrown them at Vader’s feet. They rolled across the rooftop, their residual heat making the raindrops steam.
Her vocal cords were red raw. Juno could only shake her head as Starkiller took three steps forward, and went down on one knee at Darth Vader’s feet.
“I’ll do your bidding,” he said. “Just promise me you’ll never hurt her again.”
“That,” said Vader, “depends entirely on you.”
Starkiller bowed his head, and Juno fought the urge to weep. She understood the dark place from which his capitulation had come, but submission to Darth Vader was not the way to save her. That way lay nothing but more separation and
death. And betrayal. And murder.
She had to find the strength somehow to free Starkiller—just as he, clone or original, had somehow fought his way back from the dead in order to find her again.
Her desperate gaze caught sight of one of Starkiller’s lightsabers. It had rolled in her direction and lay just out of her reach. If she was quiet, she might just be able to reach it.
The equation was very simple, really. Once before, she had abandoned her entire life for Starkiller. She could easily abandon this one too if it meant saving him from the horrible fate he had just accepted, thinking that it would save her.
Vader’s back was to her, and Starkiller’s head was still bowed.
She raised herself to hands and knees and reached out for the lightsaber.
“You will find and kill General Kota,” Vader said. “If you refuse, the woman dies.”
Starkiller said nothing. Maybe he nodded, but Juno couldn’t see him. Vader had placed himself firmly between them once again, symbolically as well as physically.
“You will return to me and give yourself to the dark side,” Vader went on. “If you resist, she dies.”
The warm metal hilt slid into Juno’s hand. She lifted it gently, afraid of making any noise at all, and raised herself to her knees. This was the first time she had held a lightsaber. She knew all too well that it was probably going to be her last.
“And when your training is complete,” Vader said, “you will hunt down and execute the Rebel leaders.”
Still winded and aching from head to foot, Juno rose unsteadily to her feet, feeling for the lightsaber’s activation switch and hardly daring to take her eyes off Vader’s back as she did so. They were less than two paces apart.
“If you fail, she dies.”
She pressed the activation switch at the same instant she lunged. The bright blue blade sprang to life with a startling hiss, but she didn’t let herself be distracted. She had used vibroblades in her training days; she knew how to wield a sword. It was even simpler than the point-and-shoot quip about blasters.
She stabbed at Vader’s back, taking the one chance she had left to reclaim her life with Starkiller.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Page 25