by James Luceno
She seemed to come back to the here and now. The shaft of blue light vanished.
“It’s an honor,” she said.
Darman called back on the comlink: General Zey had kept his word. The gunship was still waiting. They set off in column, picking up speed until they broke into a trot.
The gunship was surrounded by a skirt of billowing dust. Its drive had been idling so long that the heat of the downdraft had dried the top layer of soil.
Etain didn’t care if the ship had taken off. She hadn’t abandoned her squad. Nothing else mattered after that. And although she knew it had been a deliberate decoy, the sound of Niner screaming would haunt her forever. He must have heard that for real at least once in his life to have mimicked it so horribly well. She felt sick, and it was not because she had killed Ghez Hokan, and that filled her with shame.
She understood fully now why attachment was forbidden to Jedi.
The ARC trooper was pacing a slow, regular square, hands clasped behind his back, head down, and Etain would no longer make the assumption that he was lost in thought. He was probably listening to comm traffic in the private world of his helmet.
General Zey was sitting patiently on the ship’s platform. “Are you ready now?”
She held out Master Fulier’s lightsaber to him. “Omega Squad recovered it. I felt I should return it to you.”
“I know what you’re going through, Padawan.”
“But that’s no comfort, Master.”
“A concern for those under your command is essential. But it carries its own pain if you identify too much with your troops.” Yes, it did sound as if Zey had known that dilemma. “There are always casualties in war.”
“I know. But I also know them now as individuals, and I can’t change that. No clone trooper, no commando, not even an ARC trooper will ever be an anonymous unit to me now. I’ll always wonder who’s behind that visor. How can I be a true Jedi and not respect them as beings, with all that entails?”
Zey was studying his hands a little too carefully. “Every good commander in history has had to face that. And so will you.”
“If I’m a commander, then may I accompany them on their next mission?”
“I suspect that would not be for the best.”
“And what do I do now? How can I go back to everyday duties after this?”
“There are no everyday duties now we’re at war. I will not be leaving. I have come to do what work I can here.”
“Work?”
“What will happen to our allies—the Gurlanins—if we abandon them now, with enemy forces in the area? I’m here to operate with them, and try and make Qiilura as inhospitable to Separatists as we can.”
“I’m glad we’re honoring our commitment, Master.”
“You know this land better than anyone now. You would be a valuable asset here.”
“And when will more troops join you?”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to continue the covert work for the time being. We would need to disappear.”
We. Etain could think of nothing worse than staying on Qiilura, with its terrible memories and uncertain future. The nearest she had to friends was a squad of commandos who would be deployed on another mission within days. She would be working with a Master she didn’t know. She was alone again and scared.
“Etain, you have duties,” Zey said quietly. “We all have. We talk about duty when it’s easy, but living it is hard.” And he didn’t need to add what she knew he was thinking—that she needed to be separated from the object of her recent and desperate wartime attachment. She needed to let her squad go.
It was no different from what was asked of soldiers every day.
“I—I would like to play a useful role in the future of Qiilura, Master.” She hoped Darman wouldn’t think she was turning her back on him and that he was after all just a glorified droid to her, an asset to be used in battle and expended if necessary. “But I would still find it a comfort one day to know how Omega Squad is faring.”
“I understand,” Zey said. “The choice is yours, though. You can go with Omega Squad. Or you can stay. You might even request that one of the squad remain here.”
One of the squad. Maybe he thought she was just a girl who’d become too attached to a young man when neither of them would ever be able to take the relationship farther. He was testing her, challenging her to make the choice a proper Jedi Knight should make. Yes, she had become close to Darman: he’d been the making of her. But she cared at an inexplicably fundamental level about all of them.
“I don’t think caring about your troops is a weakness,” she said. “The day we stop caring is the day we turn our back on the Force.”
She dug her nails into her palms. Zey was right, though. And it was going to hurt. She sat on the platform beside Zey in silence, eyes closed, composing herself.
The ARC trooper suddenly jerked his head up. “General, sir, we absolutely must go now.”
“General Zey,” Niner said, and touched his glove to his temple. “Sorry we kept you. Are we ready to lift?”
“We don’t have time for a mission debriefing, but perhaps you’d like a moment with your commander,” Zey said, and beckoned the ARC trooper to follow him. It was a gracious gesture. Etain watched him walk to the rear of the ship to offer her some privacy, apparently supervising the offloading of equipment. She wondered if they had managed to land Zey’s starfighter somewhere.
She’d worry about that later. She beckoned the commandos to her.
“What’s going to happen to you now?” she said.
“Next mission. Have they assigned us to you?”
She wondered whether a lie might be in order. She looked at Darman. “Not exactly,” she said. “I’m staying here with General Zey.”
Darman and Niner both averted their eyes, looking at the ground, nodding as if in agreement. Fi raised his eyebrows. “I’m really going to miss you, Commander. Just when we were shaping up. Typical of the army, eh?” He rapped his knuckles on Niner’s back plate, pushing him a fraction toward the gunship. “Make a move, then, Sarge.”
“Hope to serve with you again, Commander,” Niner said, and saluted her. “And don’t ever think you didn’t earn that rank, will you?”
Etain wished they hadn’t left her alone with Darman. She wanted a quick exit with no time to think and make a stupid, emotional comment.
“I chose to stay,” she said. “I really would have liked to have stayed part of the team, but I’m not the officer you need.”
Darman said nothing. Of course: how could he ever have learned how to take his leave of a friend? All his brief life had been spent among his own kind, immersed in warfare real or virtual. This was where he became a ten-year-old child again. His embarrassment and confusion were palpable.
“You could remain here with me and General Zey,” she said. And I’d know you were safe. “You have that choice.”
He really was a child now. His eyes were fixed on the ground. He was flicking one of the switches on his rifle, back and forth, over and over.
“Just me, ma’am?”
She felt she was testing him now. “Yes.”
The gunship’s drive rose in frequency, a high whine: the pilot was more than impatient to leave.
“I’m sorry, Commander,” Darman said at last. For a moment, he really did seem to be considering it seriously. “I have a job to do.”
“I can’t pretend I won’t miss you,” she said.
Darman’s gaze didn’t flicker. “I’ve got about ten years left. But I’ll be with my brothers, doing what I do best. It’s all I’ve ever known—like going home, really.” He bent his head and snapped on his helmet, becoming one of the faceless again. “You take care, Commander.”
“And you,” she said, and watched him run to the platform and grasp Fi’s outstretched arm to be hauled inboard.
The drive roared into higher gear, and the gunship shook slightly.
Etain turned and walked away in a crouch to
steady herself against the downdraft. She speeded up into a hunched run until she found a tree and sat down in the lee of it with her back to its trunk.
And she let the tears run down her face.
All that she was, and all that she would be in the future, was because a clone soldier had put such undeserved faith in her that she had become that Jedi he imagined she was. She could now harness the Force in a way she had never been able to at Fulier’s side.
She thought of that look of complete faith. She thought of his stoic acceptance of his duty and of the fact that his life would be brief and bright, whatever happened. He had never known a moment of self-pity. She had learned the most important lesson of all from him.
She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and hoped Zey wasn’t watching.
Etain didn’t know if she would ever see Darman or Omega Squad again. She did know, though, that in days to come, every clone trooper or commando or ARC that she might have to order into battle would be neither anonymous, nor meaningless, nor expendable. Under that grim helmet was a man, someone just like her, a human being, but one without the freedom or the life span afforded to her.
Etain Tur-Mukan stood up and walked back into the clearing at the edge of the field to watch the gunship lift into the early-morning sky.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Novelist, screenwriter, and comics writer KAREN TRAVISS is the author of five Star Wars: Republic Commando novels, Hard Contact, Triple Zero, True Colors, Order 66, and Imperial Commando: 501st; three Star Wars: Legacy of the Force novels, Bloodlines, Revelation, and Sacrifice; two Star Wars: The Clone Wars novels, The Clone Wars and No Prisoners; two Gears of War novels, Aspho Fields and Jacinto’s Remnant; her award-nominated Wess’har Wars series, City of Pearl, Crossing the Line, The World Before, Matriarch, Ally, and Judge; and a Halo novella, Human Weakness. She’s also the lead writer on the third Gears of War game. A former defense correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist, Traviss lives in Wiltshire, England.
BY KAREN TRAVISS
STAR WARS: REPUBLIC COMMANDO
Hard Contact
Triple Zero
True Colors
Order 66
Imperial Commando: 501st
STAR WARS: LEGACY OF THE FORCE
Bloodlines
Sacrifice
Revelation
STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS
STAR WARS: NO PRISONERS
GEARS OF WAR
Aspho Fields
Jacinto’s Remnant
Anvil Gate
WESS’HAR WARS
City of Pearl
Crossing the Line
The World Before
Matriarch
Ally
Judge
Star Wars: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2005 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.
All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79581-6
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
www.readstarwars.com
v3.1
For Abel Lucero Lima, ace guide at Tikal
(aka Yavin 4), with whom I’ve left bootprints
throughout the Mundo Maya
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sincere thanks to Shelly Shapiro, Sue Rostoni, Howard Roffman, Amy Gary, Leland Chee, Pablo Hidalgo, Matt Stover, Troy Denning, and Karen Traviss. Special thanks to Ryan Kaufman, formerly of LucasArts, who described what it felt like to wear the Suit.
Contents
Master - Table of Contents
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part I: The Outer Rim Sieges
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part II: The Emperor’s Emissary
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part III: Imperial Center
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Part IV: Kashyyyk
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
PART I
THE OUTER RIM SIEGES
MURKHANA. FINAL HOURS OF THE CLONE WARS
Dropping into swirling clouds conjured by Murkhana’s weather stations, Roan Shryne was reminded of meditation sessions his former Master had guided him through. No matter how fixed Shryne had been on touching the Force, his mind’s eye had offered little more than an eddying whiteness. Years later, when he had become more adept at silencing thought and immersing himself in the light, visual fragments would emerge from that colorless void—pieces to a puzzle that would gradually assemble themselves and resolve. Not in any conscious way, though frequently assuring him that his actions in the world were in accord with the will of the Force.
Frequently but not always.
When he veered from the course on which the Force had set him, the familiar white would once again be stirred by powerful currents; sometimes shot through with red, as if he were lifting his closed eyes to the glare of a midday sun.
Red-mottled white was what he saw as he fell deeper into Murkhana’s atmosphere. Scored to reverberating thunder; the rush of the wind; a welter of muffled voices …
He was standing closest to the sliding door that normally sealed the troop bay of a Republic gunship, launched moments earlier from the forward hold of the Gallant—a Victory-class Star Destroyer, harried by vulture and droid tri-fighters and awaiting High Command’s word to commence its own descent through Murkhana’s artificial ceiling. Beside and behind Shryne stood a platoon of clone troopers, helmets fitting snugly over their heads, blasters cradled in their arms, utility belts slung with ammo magazines, talking among themselves the way seasoned warriors often did before battle. Alleviating misgivings with inside jokes; references Shryne couldn’t begin to understand, beyond the fact that they were grim.
The gunship’s inertial compensators allowed them to stand in the bay without being jolted by flaring anti-aircraft explosions or jostled by the gunship pilots’ evasive maneuvering through corkscrewing missiles and storms of white-hot shrapnel. Missiles, because the same
Separatists who had manufactured the clouds had misted Murkhana’s air with anti-laser aerosols.
Acrid odors infiltrated the cramped space, along with the roar of the aft engines, the starboard one stuttering somewhat, the gunship as battered as the troopers and crew it carried into conflict.
Even at an altitude of only four hundred meters above sea level the cloud cover remained dense. The fact that Shryne could barely see his hand in front of his face didn’t surprise him. This was still the war, after all, and he had grown accustomed these past three years to not seeing where he was going.
Nat-Sem, his former Master, used to tell him that the goal of the meditative exercises was to see clear through the swirling whiteness to the other side; that what Shryne saw was only the shadowy expanse separating him from full contact with the Force. Shryne had to learn to ignore the clouds, as it were. When he had learned to do that, to look through them to the radiant expanse beyond, he would be a Master.
Pessimistic by nature, Shryne’s reaction had been: Not in this lifetime.
Though he had never said as much to Nat-Sem, the Jedi Master had seen through him as easily as he saw through the clouds.
Shryne felt that the clone troopers had a better view of the war than he had, and that the view had little to do with their helmet imaging systems, the filters that muted the sharp scent of the air, the earphones that dampened the sounds of explosions. Grown for warfare, they probably thought the Jedi were mad to go into battle as they did, attired in tunics and hooded robes, a lightsaber their only weapon. Many of them were astute enough to see comparisons between the Force and their own white plastoid shells; but few of them could discern between armored and unarmored Jedi—those who were allied with the Force, and those who for one reason or another had slipped from its sustaining embrace.
Murkhana’s lathered clouds finally began to thin, until they merely veiled the planet’s wrinkled landscape and frothing sea. A sudden burst of brilliant light drew Shryne’s attention to the sky. What he took for an exploding gunship might have been a newborn star; and for a moment the world tipped out of balance, then righted itself just as abruptly. A circle of clarity opened in the clouds, a perforation in the veil, and Shryne gazed on verdant forest so profoundly green he could almost taste it. Valiant combatants scurried through the underbrush and sleek ships soared through the canopy. In the midst of it all a lone figure stretched out his hand, tearing aside a curtain black as night …