Darksaber

by Kevin J. Anderson

  They both wore slick, stain-impermeable jumpsuits, and they pulled on hard boots for sloshing through the brackish water. When he cracked open the hatch, the sudden buzz of millions of life forms--croaks, grunts, whistles, and death screams--assaulted his ears, a chaos of natural sounds that made the jungles of Yavin 4 seem peaceful in comparison. Minuscule gnats and biting flies thickened the air.

  Luke stood stunned and a little intimidated on the boarding ramp. A mist had already begun to unfold. The snowy shower of white spores settled to the ground from the sensitive spherical fungi. He smelled the damp odor of decay and fresh life. "Yoda," he whispered, as memories fell heavy around him.

  "This place is so alive," Callista said beside him, startling Luke from his thoughts. He still couldn't get used to the fact that he was unable to sense her with the Force, as he did everything else.

  A thread of disappointment laced through her voice. "I can see it and hear it, but I can't feel the web of living creatures as I should."

  "You will," he said, clasping her hand. "You will. Come on."

  They trudged away from the ship and into the brooding swamps. Enormous gnarltrees stretched to the sky, their twisted roots like multi-legged creatures balanced with bent knees. The roots were sweeping and arched, forming dark warrens for innumerable creatures. The day was gray and fog-shrouded, growing darker with each moment as sun-set approached.

  Luke knew that Yoda's home had long since been reclaimed by the swamp, torn to a shambles and left in far worse wreckage than Ben Kenobi's hut had been. He didn't want to return to the place where he had sat beside the alien Jedi Master's deathbed, learning the truth about his father and his sister, watching the wrinkle-faced creature fade into nothingness as his spirit left his body after nine hundred years.

  He and Callista slogged through puddles, climbing over fallen trees, and scaring creatures that fled into darker hollows, splashing into the swamp. Much larger growling things moved in the distance, crashing between trees.

  Luke spoke of Yoda and of his time training here: jogging through the swamp, levitating rocks and Artoo-Detoo, learning nuggets of Jedi philosophy that Yoda spouted in his convoluted language.

  The ground fog thickened into white tentacles that wrapped around their lower legs. Callista's face carried an openness and a tentative wonder that Luke hadn't seen in some time. Occasionally, she gritted her teeth and seemed to be straining, trying to accomplish something. Apparently failing, she said nothing to Luke; he squeezed her hand tighter.

  A knobby white spider as tall as a human heaved itself up from a pile of underbrush, its legs like twisted forerunners of the thick gnarltree roots. But the knobby hunter meant them no harm, and stalked off in search of smaller prey.

  "We should head back to the ship," Luke said.

  "It's getting dark. We can start some exercises tomorrow."

  They circled toward the clearing where they had landed the space yacht, then sat outside in the darkness.

  Callista brought out a portable glowlamp, and Luke removed a case of rations from the ship's stores. They sat on boulders surrounded by an envelope of light, and tore into their food bars. "What a place for a picnic," Callista said.

  She chewed intently while Luke stared down at his tasteless rations. "Yoda didn't like this food," he said. "Couldn't understand how I managed to grow so tall if I ate food like this. He fixed me some kind of stew, and I don't think I wanted to know what was in it." Bugs swarmed around them, attracted by the light as the night thickened. "Should we go inside the ship?" he asked. "Where it's more comfortable?"

  Callista shook her head. "We were comfortable at the Mulako quarry resort. I didn't come here to be comfortable." She looked up at the impenetrable sky. "I wanted to feel something here ... but it's not working." She turned sharply, flashing her slate gray eyes at Luke, and he saw devastation within them. "Why do you stay with me, Luke?" she said.

  He blinked, shocked at her question.

  "You are a Jedi Master," she continued, "one of the heroes of the Rebellion. You could have anyone you want."

  Amazed, Luke raised his hand to cut off her comments. "I don't want just anybody, Callista--I want you."

  She flung the rest of her ration bar angrily out into the swamp, where it splashed into a weed-covered pool. Luke heard thrashing and bubbles as underwater creatures fought for loose morsels.

  Callista's expression grew stern.

  "Well, that's fine, Luke--but you have to think of more than your feelings. You have a responsibility to the New Republic ... to the Jedi Knights. If I'm powerless, I'll drag you down."

  Longingly, Luke caressed her arm. "No you won't, Callista. I--” She stood, abruptly stepping away from him.

  "Yes! There's only one way we can be together. It's all or nothing. If I can't have my powers back, then we shouldn't stay together. You'd better start preparing yourself for that possibility. I don't want to always be in your shadow, unable to do the things you do so easily ... taunted by the things I used to do myself. You'd be a constant reminder, opening and reopening my wounds. If I'm not your equal, I won't be part of this relationship. That's the way it has to be."

  "Hey, wait a minute ..." Luke said, trying to calm her down.

  Suddenly, with a screeching subsonic cry, a swarm of nightbats crashed out of the swamp trees and swooped down. They had leathery wings and insectile bodies with six thin segmented legs bearing small, sharp claws. Attracted by the light, the nightbats came toward them. Other flying creatures flurried in front of them, confused by the high-pitched barrage of noise.

  The nightbats attacked indiscriminately, scratching with their claws at Callista and Luke, slashing his jumpsuit, his neck. Luke fended them off with his hands. Two clutched Callista's malt blond hair, tugging it and fighting with each other as she thrashed to knock them away. With a hissing thrumm Luke drew his lightsaber, and Callista yanked hers free.

  Luke used the Force to strike at his targets, but the nightbats kept coming, dozens of them. The lightsaber blades crackled and flared, topaz and yellow-green--attracting more of the creatures.

  Callista hissed in anger and struck with her lightsaber, clumsily wielding it like a club that sliced through anything she encountered. Luke clipped off the wings of a nightbat, even as more swirled in, shrieking.

  Callista shouted curses at them as she attacked blindly and with brute force. Her battle disturbed Luke. It was filled with a fury and a wild abandon he had never seen in her. Callista yelled at the nightbats as if they were an incarnation of her greatest enemy.

  "It's not fair!" she said, targeting Luke briefly with her gaze. "I've finally found you--and now I might have to give you up."

  She raised her voice and chopped with the sun-yellow blade in such an explosion of fury that she sliced through three of the nightbats. "It's not fair."

  And as she released her anger, Luke felt a glimmer, dark ripples that came from Callista. He caught a glimpse of her image in the Force, like the flickering afterglow of things seen under a strobelight.

  "Leave us alone!" she shouted at the bats and unconsciously pushed. The remaining nightbats went into a confused spiral away from their campsite--buffeted by Callista's rage--and fled shrieking into the night. Stunned silence returned to the clearing.

  Then Callista lowered her energy blade, slumping weakly in the aftermath of what she had done. Luke deactivated his own lightsaber and stared at her in amazement. Outside the perimeter of the glowlamp, though, Luke heard other creatures stirring, larger predators crashing through the underbrush, attracted by the commotion. Out of sight, an overhanging branch cracked and was flung to the ground as something huge lumbered forward.

  Luke switched off the glowlamp, plunging the swamp into a darkness lit only by the twinkling lights of phosphorescent insects and glowing fungus. But the large, unseen predators kept coming.

  Luke grabbed Callista's arm, and she stiffened, as if he were a stranger. "Come on,” he said. "We've got to get inside before they com
e back."

  She snapped out of her funk and followed him up the boarding ramp into the space yacht. Luke activated the hatch controls and the ship sealed itself, locking down for the night.

  They both collapsed on one of the passenger benches, and Callista pressed herself against him. Luke put his arms around her shoulders and squeezed. Callista was shuddering, glistening with a sheen of frightened perspiration. "I opened up for just a second," she said.

  "I know," Luke answered. "I could feel it."

  Then she looked up at him, her eyes very afraid. "But it was the dark side, Luke! We both recognized it."

  Luke nodded, and they stared at each other with a mixture of hope and dread. "At least you've cracked through," he said. "Perhaps now you can do something."

  Callista sat up straight, gathering her strength again. She spoke with absolute certainty as the muffled night sounds of Dagobah's swamp enfolded the sealed ship.

  "It's not worth the cost, Luke. If I have to touch the dark side to regain my powers, then I'd rather not ever be a Jedi again."

  HOTH ASTEROID BELT

  CHAPTER 27

  Shortly after Durga left in a huff for Nal Hutta on some unexpected diplomatic mission, Bevel Lemelisk watched Imperial General Sulamar transform into an even more pompous ass without the Hutt there to squash his dictatorial impulses.

  Sulamar seemed to think he was the reincarnation of Grand Moff Tarkin, strutting about and issuing orders at his whim. But unlike Tarkin, Sulamar gave orders that had no merit, and the general had none of the personal power or iron-hard charisma Tarkin had displayed. Lemelisk brushed him aside. He'd never had much use for military puffballs. He had work to do.

  The growing magnificent construction of the Darksaber filled him with joy as he watched from the distant Orko SkyMine expeditionary ship. The main supports for the superweapon had taken shape, folding the durasteel lattice into a cylindrical tube, like a gigantic wind tunnel. General Sulamar had supposedly used his influence to obtain surplus computer cores from old Imperial shipyards, cores powerful enough to direct the operations of the Darksaber.

  The Hutts had been unable to purchase appropriate computers through regular channels, but Sulamar had promised to get them, chin high with self-importance. Lemelisk would believe in the alleged computer cores when he actually saw them.

  In Durga's absence, Sulamar loved to remain on the command deck, standing significantly in the space where the Hutt's levitating platform usually hung. The general wore a smug expression on his old baby face.

  Lemelisk, though, preferred the private observation blister that Durga used as a relaxation lounge. Here, staring out at the orbiting battering rams of crushed rock, Lemelisk could be alone and at peace with his thoughts, letting his mind buzz as new things occurred to him, ideas he would explore at some later date. The potential for destruction made him curiously aware of the power contained within this space shrapnel. It calmed him.

  Once the Automated Mineral Exploiters Gamma and Delta had gone operational--with programming altered so as to ignore each other as potential targets and resources--the construction had progressed amazingly well. Day by day, Lemelisk could see the behemoth blossoming, taking shape from a jumble of loose, drifting girders into a long and shimmering lightsaber handle whose blade would be a superlaser that could crack planets.

  The Taurill workers were the key--Durga's masterstroke, and Lemelisk gave the Hutt all the credit he deserved. The multiarmed simian creatures were agile, strong, and intelligent enough en masse.

  Lemelisk hadn't the slightest idea where Durga had obtained the thousands of specially made environment suits: small, airtight, heated, and with four arms and two legs to fit the Taurill. Like a pack of vermin the little creatures swarmed outside in the hard vacuum, scurrying over the construction site, working collectively.

  Feeling silly at first, Lemelisk had spent hours with representatives from the Taurill, a pair of the fuzzy creatures that seemed like simpering pets. He displayed the Darksaber plans on the holoprojector, pointing out precise construction details, tediously going over every step. It had seemed at first as if he were speaking to a nonintelligent furball that blinked stupidly at him. But he knew that those blank, half amused stares were windows to a greater Overmind able to concentrate on the input from these two observers, absorb it, and understand it. At least Bevel Lemelisk hoped so.

  These mind-linked creatures would have to work together, knowing the details of the entire design. If everything worked right, the superweapon would be built in a fraction of the time that space construction normally required.

  As he looked out and saw the long, girder-sheathed tube being assembled before his eyes, Lemelisk was awed. It was so different, so fantastic to have enthusiastic construction workers for once. ...

  The convicts from the penal planet Despayre had proved totally inadequate for the rigors of constructing the first Death Star. They were untrained, physically challenged, mentally unstable--a lousy workforce in every sense. Finally, after their repeated and costly mistakes, Lemelisk expressed his disgust and displeasure to Grand Moff Tarkin, who took appropriate action.

  After Tarkin had finished executing the entire work crew, Lemelisk and six hundred stormtroopers accompanied him on a "recruitment drive" to the planet Kashyyyk.

  "The Wookiees are animals," Tarkin said, his face pinched, his eyes flinty. "They are hairy and violent, and they smell ... but they're intelligent enough. If properly broken, they are acceptable workers, as well as expendable in the usual sense. Their planet is out of the way and barely inhabited. A few human traders visit and do a little business, but nothing that will be missed. That's why we've enslaved some of the Wookiees before."

  "I know," Lemelisk said. "We used a group of the beasts to help construct Maw Installation. Didn't have much contact with them, though."

  "Ah," Tarkin said, nodding, "then you know what brutes they are."

  "Yes, but they're certainly strong."

  While the Star Destroyers rode in high orbit, Lemelisk accompanied the Grand Moff as the assault shuttles dropped through the atmosphere, weapons blazing to get the attention of the natives. They searched for a place to land on the canopy, and Lemelisk looked out the passenger window in dismay at the leaves and branches swarming with insects and vermin. It turned his stomach to think that this world's inhabitants had done so little to improve their environment: no developments, no civilization, just primitive tree dwellings. The forest itself was unexploited-- Lemelisk could barely believe it, and he lowered his expectations of Wookiee intelligence.

  The stormtroopers found a crude landing pad on the canopy, supported by thousands of meter-thick branches. Though it looked rickety, the platform proved to be sturdy enough as the assault shuttles settled down with a blast of repulsorlifts.

  The Wookiees they encountered had a blatting, growling language that was completely incomprehensible. Luckily, they understood blasters. A number of their leaders also understood Basic, so that when Tarkin issued his demands, the leaders translated the words into barks and snorts. When they roared in defiance, the Wookiees made it clear they understood completely.

  Lemelisk sighed. Tarkin would have to do it the hard way.

  So the assault shuttles circled, firing with laser cannons until sections of the towering forest gushed with flames. Pillars of smoke rose, spreading like black bloodstains on the sky. The Wookiee animals wailed in betrayal.

  Lemelisk had already begun planning how best to use the brawny brutes in the Death Star construction, calculating how many human guards would be needed per group of Wookiee workers, what the optimum size for a Wookiee labor gang would be. Such administrative and construction details always nagged Lemelisk in the middle of difficult projects.

  The Wookiees were lashed with force whips, their offspring herded into hostage camps, adult males and females shoved into cargo compartments.

  One large bull with silver-tipped fur rebelled, knocking stormtroopers right and left. In moment
s the other Wookiees joined in the fight, but Tarkin didn't hesitate. He ordered his men to cut down any beast who resisted.

  The silver-fringed bull went first, falling off the platform with a smoking hole in his chest. His body crashed through the canopy until it finally came to rest, caught in the thick branches far above ground: Other unruly Wookiees were shot, and the resistance ended quickly. From that point on, all the Wookiees wore binders clamped tightly to their wrists.

  Lemelisk wished Tarkin would hurry back to the construction site so they could begin training the new workers. The project did have a deadline, after all, and the Emperor was counting on them. Didn't these Wookiees understand?

  Probably not, he thought. They were just dumb animals.

  On the trip back and during the interminable days of indoctrination, the Wookiees' resistance was further broken with sonic negative-stimulation transmitters, drugs in their food, and threats against the hostages Tarkin had abandoned on Kashyyyk.

  Once they got started and trained, though, Lemelisk was proud of the progress the Wookiees made. The work crews were strong and competent, so long as they were carefully watched to prevent sabotage attempts. It was good to see the Death Star moving toward completion again. ...

  As far as Bevel Lemelisk could tell, the Darksaber construction was correct, but he had a bad feeling as he watched the Taurill working with such speed. He recalled the difficulties he had experienced with the unwilling Wookiee work crews, and he did a telescopic scan, comparing the lines on the holographic blueprints with what he could see of the durasteel latticework forming the large cylindrical skeleton.

  The Taurill were hard workers, amazingly speedy--but their greatest flaw, Lemelisk had found, was that they were distractible. The hive-minded Taurill had thousands of different facets of attention, and when an asteroid soared too close to the construction site or a smuggler's ship flew within view, the Taurill focused their attention on the new sight. As the Overmind became intrigued with the novelty, more of the multiarmed components turned to look, scrambling for a better view, climbing to new positions, viewing the intriguing event from a new and well-woven perspective.