Star Wars: Darksaber

by Kevin J. Anderson

  He reached upward with his hands, picturing the Star Destroyers in orbit: seventeen wedge-shaped engines of death bristling with weapons, loaded with more TIE fighters and assault troops. His thoughts soared outward, leaving the emerald jungle moon behind, and trailing behind his presence came a battering ram of invisible, irresistible Force that would be undetectable on any Imperial scanners. The Star Destroyers waited, overconfident, powerful—unsuspecting.

  He found them. Touched them with his mind. They were huge, greater in mass than he had imagined; even so, he used the Force to push.

  Dorsk 81 strained, touching the cluster of ships … but they proved immovable, too large. The Force held them, yet it could not do what he needed it to do. He tried harder.

  He drew more energy from the others. He could feel the determination and controlled anger of Kyp Durron, the clean fighting prowess of Kirana Ti, the powerful deep knowledge of Tionne, the grim pain of Kam Solusar, the childlike wonder of Streen—and more … more. He took all of the Jedi trainees within himself, braiding the threads together, becoming a vast and complex set of memories, strengths, and skills. He reached deeper and deeper.

  The Force seemed to be a bottomless well, offering more than he had thought possible—but as Dorsk 81 pulled it inside himself, he also felt the danger, the destructive potential: too much of this strength could be his downfall.

  He pushed again, straining harder, abandoning all caution.

  The Star Destroyers moved slightly in space, bucking and resisting—but it was still not enough. In his mind Dorsk 81 saw yet another wing of TIE fighters launched with orders to finish the destruction of the Jedi Knights.

  That must never happen.

  Dorsk 81 exerted his mind to the breaking point. His body trembled. His yellow eyes saw nothing around him now, because every thought was focused out into space where Pellaeon’s Star Destroyers waited.

  You are a Jedi Knight, Kyp had told him, and sometimes that means we must make difficult decisions.

  Dorsk 81 knew this, knew it in his heart—and he didn’t allow fear. The Force was with him. Perhaps more Force than he could handle … but he still had a mission to perform. No matter what it might take.

  All the other Jedi Knights depended on him alone, and he knew that this was what he had to accomplish. This was the deed that his predecessor Dorsk 80 would never be able to comprehend.

  Without a second thought, without hesitation, Dorsk 81 reached all the way down, drawing from the deep wells of Force that the thirty gathered Jedi Knights had opened for him. He took more and more without restraint, hoarding it within himself, letting it build as he absorbed the full searing power amplified through the Great Temple, focused it through his body and launched it at the fleet of Star Destroyers.

  “Move!” he shouted.

  The words themselves were like power incarnate, white-hot energy flaming out of his mouth, from his fingertips, surging through his body and burning, burning.

  The inside of his head went bright like a star going supernova behind his skull, and his consciousness rode along with the tidal wave of Force. He felt it strike the seventeen Star Destroyers, and they slammed backward like twigs in a typhoon. The shockwave flung the entire fleet far out, cast them helplessly beyond the fringes of the Yavin System, their computers fried, their propulsion systems wrecked, still accelerating from the storm of the Force.

  Pellaeon’s fleet of Star Destroyers went … away.

  Dorsk 81 also rode the storm—to its ultimate, unknown destination.

  The Force dropped Kyp like a severed rope. All the Jedi trainees tumbled weakly to their knees. When he could see again, blinking through colored spangles in front of his eyes, he saw Dorsk 81—or what remained of him—still tottering at the center of the observation platform.

  Though his own legs wanted to collapse, Kyp struggled forward to grab his friend. Dorsk 81 collapsed and fell against him. The two of them slid to the sun-warmed flagstones.

  “Dorsk 81,” Kyp said, looking down in horror as the cloned alien’s skin sizzled from within, as if the tissues had been brought to a boil. Dorsk 81’s wide yellow eyes were now only smoldering sockets. Steam rose from his body.

  A breath of words curled out of his gaping, blackened mouth. “They’re gone, my friend,” he said.

  “Wait!” Kyp said. “Wait, we’ll find a healer. We’ll get Cilghal back. We’ll find—”

  But Dorsk 81 was already dead in his arms.

  CHAPTER 47

  Admiral Daala’s black Knight Hammer arrived, the second wave of the assault on the Jedi stronghold. The ship hung as an opaque wedge eight kilometers long, silhouetted like a knife blade against the pale orange sphere of Yavin.

  Daala’s troops were on full alert, and her weapons systems had been powered to maximum levels. She stood on the bridge deck looking out over the sweeping metal plain that formed the Knight Hammer’s upper hull.

  By the time she reached the system, she had expected to find Pellaeon virtually finished with his attack, so she could enjoy the final destruction of the Jedi Knights. But as the Knight Hammer sliced through space, Daala felt her enthusiasm crumble into astonishment. She saw no sign of Pellaeon’s fleet in orbit around Yavin 4.

  The bone-white Imperial Star Destroyers were simply not there. Space around the green jungle moon was empty.

  “Where is he?” Daala demanded. “Open a channel. Find Pellaeon.”

  “Scanning the area, Admiral,” the sensor chief said. “No sign of Star Destroyers in the Yavin System.”

  Daala glowered down at the jungle moon, appalled and speechless.

  “He was here, sir,” the tactical officer said. “The jammer satellite net is in place. The Jedi Knights have not sent any signals, as far as we can tell, and I do detect some ground activity. Heavy weapons fire in the jungles. Ground assault troops have been deployed—but the Star Destroyers are no longer here.”

  Daala ran a gloved finger along her chin. She scowled. “Something has gone terribly wrong.” She turned back to the sensor chief. “Expand your scan,” she said. “Look across the entire planetary system, not just near the gas giant. Did Pellaeon retreat? He knew I was coming.”

  The sensor chief checked and rechecked her readings, shaking her head. She looked up at Daala. “There’s no sign, sir. I’ve run a sweep all the way to the outer planets and I find no ships. No wreckage either. Vice Admiral Pellaeon was here at the jungle moon—but now he’s gone.”

  Daala felt cold needles of sweat prickle her scalp as anger raised her body temperature. She looked down at the jungle moon and thought of the Jedi Knights down there, fledgling sorcerers wielding a Force she did not understand. They should have been such an easy target.… Daala knew where to channel her anger.

  For most of her professional life, Daala had restrained a wealth of spite and venom, barely controlled fury that would have eaten its way out of her if she had not found a way to express it.

  Life had been peaceful for her once, long ago, when she had been young and in love—but that was before the Carida military academy, before Tarkin (whom she admired more than loved). Now she was left with only anger.

  Luckily for the Empire, her methods of releasing that inner pressure had often resulted in devastation to the enemy. She could keep herself psychologically strong only if she had a target—and now she decided that target must be the Jedi Knights on Yavin 4. They had ruined her straight-forward total victory.

  The Knight Hammer’s launching bays were packed with thousands of TIE fighters and TIE bombers, fully loaded and ready to be deployed, but Daala decided against it. Pellaeon would have taken that tack, and if the Jedi Knights somehow had a secret defense against individual fighters such as those, she must adapt—and use a different strategy.

  “Order all TIE pilots to stand down for the moment,” she said. “Have them return to their crew quarters and remain on full alert. I won’t be launching their ships just yet.” She wanted to waste no time.

  “Do
we have plans for an attack, Admiral?” the weapons chief said from his station, looking disappointed as he assessed his array of weaponry.

  “Yes,” Daala said. “We strike from orbit. All turbo-laser batteries, full strength. Fire at will, targeting any structures in the jungle.”

  “Yes, Admiral!” the weapons chief said with obvious enthusiasm.

  Lances of brilliant energy shot down to the placid surface of the small moon below. The gas giant Yavin seemed unperturbed by the holocaust occurring on its tiny sibling.

  The Knight Hammer’s weapons chief fired another volley of deadly turbolasers, and another, and another. Daala stared fixated at the target. She slammed her gloved fist into the bridge rail with each shot, as if she could add to the destructive potential of the blast.

  She stood and waited, feeling her anger smoldering with a barely expressed satisfaction. Her appetite for destruction had merely been whetted. Even from her place in the Knight Hammer, high above Yavin 4, she could already see the forests starting to burn.

  CHAPTER 48

  Like armored birds of prey, the Victory-class Star Destroyers struck target after target, leaving a swath of flames and destruction in their wake.

  Colonel Cronus sat back in the uncomfortable command chair of the 13X and scrutinized his dwindling list of targets compiled by Admiral Daala. He clasped his hands together, squeezing, flexing his arm muscles. His entire body felt tense, coiled with fierce pride. His mind was ablaze with success after success—but he did not allow himself to grow giddy with satisfaction, because then he might let his guard down and perform less than perfectly. He couldn’t afford that, not after such a glowing record.

  He sat back, strapped himself in, and prepared for another battle. “Shields up,” he said.

  “Acknowledged,” the tactical officer said.

  “Prepare to engage.” One by one, the other Victory ships checked in automatically as their computers sent coded responses. Cronus leaned forward, squeezing the arms of his command chair so tightly that his fingertips left indentations. “Full forward,” he said.

  The fleet of crimson ships plunged through the Chardaan Shipyards, a Rebel space facility that produced a variety of starfighters—from the old-model X-wings and Y-wings to the newer A-, B-, and E-wing fighters. After this assault, Cronus thought, the facility wouldn’t produce much of anything at all.

  The shipyard’s zero-g pressurized hangars were silvery spheres, clusters that provided a shirtsleeve working environment for the mechanics who assembled components to form the sleek ships. As Cronus’s fleet roared past their targets, the hangars exploded with satisfying eruptions of burning air and outflying metal. Significant enemy casualties. No Imperial losses.

  A boxy ore hauler lumbered away. The huge corroded vehicle had seen better days and was now manned by only a skeleton crew that tried to lurch their ancient vessel out of danger.

  Cronus took pleasure in targeting the ore-hauler’s rear engines, knocking the behemoth out of control. It trailed flames as it crashed into an outer docking ring filled with the personal quarters of engineers.

  Cronus did not slow down. He led the fleet through the thick of the construction area, firing indiscriminately.

  The Rebel forces mobilized with remarkable speed. Starfighters, old and new, streaked toward the Victory ships, piloted by construction workers and off-duty fighters.

  “Hit everything you can, but do not engage the Rebel defenses,” Cronus ordered. “It’s not worth our bother. We’ll cruise through at top speed and leave them trembling as we depart.”

  He could tell by the rapidity with which the Rebels mustered their forces that they must have been put on alert. Somehow they had been forewarned of Daala’s planned attacks. He flexed his arm muscles again.

  The small Rebel ships concentrated their firepower on two of the crimson battlecruisers, and Cronus admired their strategy. The fighters were too small and too few to cause significant damage across Cronus’s fleet … but if they picked a single target at a time, they just might—

  One of the Victory ships exploded, blowing shrapnel in all directions and taking out a dozen of the harrying Rebel X-wings.

  Cronus felt annoyance as much as disappointment. “Increase speed,” he shouted. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The second Victory-class ship blew up, but this time the ship’s commander didn’t have the foresight to use the destruction of his Star Destroyer for a final advantage, and the resulting detonation caused no collateral damage.

  Cronus no longer had a perfect record, and he was upset.

  As they passed through an exploding fuel-supply station and a hazardous forest of loose, drifting girders, Cronus ordered his Star Destroyers to deploy their timed seeker-detonators with chaff and debris clouds. The small, powerful mines would hunt out innocuous-looking targets, where they would be triggered later—a surprise for the Rebels to find during cleanup operations. Cronus took a great deal of satisfaction in knowing he could continue the destruction even after he departed.

  “Rebel defenses are aligned, sir,” the sensor chief said, “and gathering force.”

  Cronus nodded and leaned forward. “Time to go. We’ve caused all the devastation we can here.”

  The fleet of Victory-class ships escaped cleanly into hyperspace as the Rebel forces came gunning after them.

  The sweeping cultural museums on Porus Vida were renowned throughout the galaxy, centuries old—and astonishingly undefended against attack. Colonel Cronus didn’t consider them military targets … but Admiral Daala had included them as a psychological strike, and Cronus followed orders.

  It was a simple act for his ships to sweep by with turbolasers blazing to set the art and document storehouses aflame. His remote sensors transmitted images of sculpture gardens melting under waves of heat, graceful figures with arms upswept in aesthetic expressions of joy, buckling in agony as they melted into lava.

  The green grasses of manicured gardens were crisped brown at the moment of flashpoint. Reflection pools and fish ponds boiled into steam, and screaming patrons stumbled and fell in their tracks. The museums burned, their treasure houses annihilated.

  Colonel Cronus tapped his fingers together and pursed his lips. Who cared about cultural records anyway? He was in the process of destroying their history, and making history of his own.

  The Imperial fleet stumbled upon the diplomatic convoy through sheer serendipity, but Cronus took advantage of the surprise.

  The convoy consisted of nine rounded cylinders strung with gossamer solar sails, which made them look like flower petals spinning through space, augmented by sublight engines as they came toward a refueling station. Beautiful to behold, Cronus thought, but sluggish, poorly maneuverable, and slow to respond to an overt attack.

  When the desperate alien transmissions came to him, he saw the aliens were a species of fragile-looking insectoid creatures with sweeping butterfly wings—and very little weaponry. When his Victory-class fleet charged among the ships, turning their solar sails to cinders, he received an immediate and unconditional surrender.

  Colonel Cronus was not interested in surrender.

  He checked their identification and stated mission, filing away the data in case Daala might need it. Then he ordered their complete annihilation.

  “These are allies of our enemy, bringing gifts and swearing allegiance to Coruscant,” Cronus said. “They chose the wrong side in this galactic conflict, and now they will pay for it.”

  He fired upon the lead ambassadorial ship, using turbolasers like hot razors to rip open the ship’s metal belly, so that atmosphere and passengers spewed into space like spurting blood.

  His ships continued the bombardment until the aliens’ reserve fuel tanks detonated. Cronus opened the comm channel again to his fleet. “Since this convoy is unarmed, we may as well take the time to finish the job.”

  The Victory-class ships and their pilots, still angered by losing two ships at the Chardaan Depot, took great relish
in slicing apart every last one of the butterfly ships.…

  They drifted for a moment surrounded by total wreckage. Cronus caught his breath from the excitement and ordered the fleet to proceed. “A job well done,” he said over the comm system. “Now it’s time to rejoin Admiral Daala at Yavin 4.”

  He closed his eyes and relaxed for a moment as his fleet of Star Destroyers soared onward, unchallenged.

  HOTH ASTEROID BELT

  CHAPTER 49

  In the hushed mechanical silence of the Darksaber’s control deck, General Crix Madine, the Supreme Allied Commander for Intelligence, glared accusingly at Sulamar.

  The Imperial officer stood stiff with self-importance, but his expression was wild and panicked. His cheeks flushed scarlet, and his close-set eyes flicked back and forth. The other guards grasped Madine’s arms, squeezing hard enough to bruise.

  Durga the Hutt leaned forward and smacked his huge lips together, the distorted birthmark across his face rippling like spilled ink. “General Sulamar—you know this saboteur?”

  Madine laughed, making sure he spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “Did you call him a general?” he said. “That buffoon’s no general.”

  Sulamar waved his hands in a frenzy, as if he could wipe out Madine’s existence with a gesture. He blinked his eyes like the fluttering wings of a night insect drawn against its will to a bright hot light. “Don’t listen to this man, Lord Durga! He’s a traitor to the Empire—”

  Madine snorted. “And you’re a good-for-nothing junior technician, third grade—transferred from assignment to assignment because you kept screwing up your duties!” He made a rude noise.

  Sulamar stormed forward, but stopped, his fists clenching and unclenching. He looked about to choke on thick, syrupy anger. He whirled to face the Hutt. “Lord Durga, you’ve seen my command abilities—don’t let this traitorous spy lie to you.”