by James Luceno
Out of billowing smoke came Filli, running in a crouch and leading Deran Nalual by her left hand. Converging on Starstone from another direction appeared Cudgel and a dozen or so Wookiees, Chewbacca among them, some of them limping, some with blood-matted fur.
“Where are the others?” Filli asked her, loud enough to be heard above the maelstrom of smoke and fire.
She motioned to the drop ship. “Skeck, Lambe, Nam, and Klossi are inside.”
“Forte?” Filli said. “Kulka …?”
“Dead.”
Deran Nalual hung her head and clutched on to Filli’s arm.
“Shryne?”
Wide-eyed she gazed up at the balcony, as if just recalling him. “Up there.”
Filli’s eyes remained on her. “The Drunk Dancer’s upside. You ready to leave?”
She stared at him. “Leave?”
He nodded. “Try to, anyway.”
She looked around in naked dread. “We can’t leave them to this! We brought this on!”
Filli firmed his lips. “What happened to your idea of perpetuating the Jedi order?” He reached for her hands, but she backed away. “If you want to die a hero here, then I’ll stay and die with you,” he said flatly. “But only if I’m convinced that you know our deaths aren’t going to affect the outcome.”
“Filli’s right,” Archyr said from behind her, shouting to be heard. “Punish yourself later, Olee. If we’re gonna survive this, the sooner we’re airborne, the better.”
Starstone swept her eyes over the ruined landing platform. “We take as many as we can with us.”
Overhearing her, Cudgel began gesticulating to the Wookiees with whom he had arrived. “Chewbacca, pack the drop ship and the transport! Get everyone you can inside.”
Others heard her, as well, and it wasn’t long before dozens of Wookiees began to press forward. Shortly the area was crowded with more Wookiees and traders than the two ships could possibly accommodate. But in the midst of the mad crush for space aboard the craft, Imperial gunships abruptly began to break off their attack on Kachirho.
The reason for the sudden withdrawal was soon made clear, as colossal turbolaser beams lanced from the sky, scorching areas of the surrounding forests into which thousands of Wookiees had fled. With great booming sounds, giant limbs broke from the wroshyrs, and hot wind and flames swept over the landing platform, setting fire to nearly everything flammable.
With explosive sounds rumbling, Wookiees ran screaming from the forest, fur singed, blackened, or ablaze.
It took Starstone a moment to realize that she was flat on her back on the landing platform. Picking herself up, hair blowing in a hot, foul-smelling wind, she struggled to her feet in time to hear Cudgel say: “Orbital barrage—”
The rest of his words were subsumed in a thunderous noise that commenced in the upper reaches of Kachirho as dozens of huge limbs fractured and fell, plummeting into the lake and flattening acres of shoreline vegetation.
Suddenly Archyr was tapping her on the shoulder.
“Olee, we’re as full as we can be and still be able to lift off.”
She nodded by rote.
Filli turned and started back toward the transport, only to stop, swing around, and show her an alarmed look. “Wait! Who’s going to fly that thing?”
She gaped at him. “I thought—”
“I’m no pilot! What about Lambe or Nam?”
She shook her head back and forth. “They’re in no shape.” Scanning everyone, her gaze fell on Cudgel. “Can you pilot the transport?”
He gestured to himself in incredulity. “Sure. Providing you don’t care about being shot out of the air as soon as we launch.”
Her dread mounted, the rush of blood pounding in her ears. I can’t leave everyone here! All at once Cudgel was calling to her and motioning Chewbacca forward.
“Chewbacca can pilot the transport!”
She shot the Wookiee a dubious glance, then looked to Cudgel for assurance. “Can he even fit?”
Chewbacca barked and brayed to Cudgel.
“He’ll do the piloting in return for your allowing him to take the transport back down the well to Rwookrrorro,” Cudgel explained. “His home village. He has family there.”
Starstone was already nodding. “Of course he can.”
“Everyone on board,” Archyr yelled. “Seal ’em up!” Swinging to Starstone, he said: “Which one are you going up in?”
She shook her head. “I’m not. I’m waiting here for Shryne.”
“Oh, no, you’re not,” he said.
“Archyr, you saw Vader!”
“And so did Roan.”
“But—”
“We’ll try to grab him on the way up.” Archyr gestured to the transport. “Now get aboard, and tell Chewbacca to stick close. Skeck and I will provide cover fire.”
I was rather fond of Commander Appo,” Vader said, toeing the amputated head of the clone officer out of his path as he moved closer to Shryne.
Shryne tightened his grip on the hilt of Forte’s lightsaber and sidestepped cautiously to the left, forcing Vader to adjust his course. “I felt the same about Bol Chatak.”
“Tell me, Shryne, are you the trap the others hoped to spring on me?”
Shryne continued to circle Vader. “I wasn’t even part of their plan. In fact, I tried to talk them out of doing something like this.”
“But in the end you just couldn’t stay away. Even if it meant abandoning what might have been a lucrative career as a smuggler.”
“Losing Senator Fang Zar was a blow to our reputation. I figured I’d better eliminate the competition.”
“Yes,” Vader said, raising his blade somewhat, “I am your worst rival.”
Lightsaber grasped in both hands, Vader took a single forward step and performed a lightning-fast underhand sweep that almost knocked Forte’s lightsaber from Shryne’s grip. Spinning, Shryne regained his balance and raced forward, feinting a diagonal slash from the left, then twisting the blade around to the right and surging forward. The blade might have gotten past Vader’s guard, but instead it glanced off the back of his upraised left hand, smoke curling from the black glove. Shryne countered quickly with an upsweep to Vader’s neck, but Vader spun to the right, his blade held straight out in front of him as he completed a circle, nearly cutting Shryne in half.
Folding himself at the waist, Shryne skittered backward, parrying a rapid series of curt but powerful slashes. Backflipping out of range, he twisted his body to the right, set the blade over his right shoulder, and rushed forward, hammering away. Vader deflected the blows without altering his stance or giving ground, but in the process left his lower trunk and legs unprotected.
In a blink Shryne dropped into a crouch and pivoted through a turn.
For an instant it seemed that the blade was going to pass clear through Vader’s knees, but Vader leapt high, half twisting in midair and coming down behind Shryne. Shryne rolled as Vader’s crimson shaft struck the floor at the spot he had just vacated. Scrambling to his feet, Shryne hurled himself forward, catching Vader in the right forearm.
Snarling, Vader took his left hand from the lightsaber hilt to dampen sparking at the site of what should have been a wound.
Astonishment eclipsed Shryne’s follow-up attack.
“I know you don’t have a heart,” he said, taking stalking steps, “but I didn’t realize that you’re all droid.”
Vader may have been about to reply when packets of blinding light speared through the balcony, opening holes ten meters across. The great wroshyr shook as if struck by the full force of a lightning storm, and branches and leaves rained down on what was left of the deck. With a loud splitting sound, a large section of the rim broke away, taking Vader’s shuttle with it.
“There goes your ride home,” Shryne said when he could. “Guess you’re stuck here with me.”
Vader was a good distance away, one hand and one knee pressed to the floor, his blade angled away from him. Slowly he stood t
o his full height, leaves falling around him, black cloak flapping in the downdrafts. Then, with determined strides, he advanced on Shryne, sweeping his blade from side to side.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Shryne took a quick look around.
With most of the tier behind him blown away, and gaping holes elsewhere, he began to back toward the hollowed trunk of the tree.
“Almost seems like your own people are trying to kill you, Vader,” he said. “Maybe they don’t like the idea of a Sith influencing the Emperor.”
Vader continued his resolute march. “Trust me, Shryne, the Emperor couldn’t be more pleased.”
Shryne cast a quick glance over his shoulder. They were entering an enormous interior space of wooden ramps, walkways, bridges, and concourses. “He doesn’t have enough experience with your kind.”
“And you do?”
“Enough to know that you’ll turn on him eventually.”
Vader loosed what could have been a laugh. “What makes you think the Emperor won’t turn on me first?”
“Like he turned on the Jedi,” Shryne said. “Although I suspect that was mostly your doing.”
Five meters away, Vader stopped short. “Mine?”
“You convinced him that with you by his side, he could get away with just about anything.”
Again, Vader’s exhalation approximated a laugh. “It’s thinking like that that blinded the Jedi to their fate.” He raised his sword. “Now it’s time for you to join them.”
Vader closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, slashing left and right with potent vertical strokes, narrowly missing Shryne time and again, but destroying everything touched by the blade. No whirling now; no windmilling or deft lunges. He simply used his bulk and size to remain wedded to the floor. It was an old style, the very opposite of what was said to have been Dooku’s style, and Shryne had no defense against it.
If I could see his face, his eyes, Shryne found time to think.
If he could knock that outsize helmet from Vader’s head.
If he could lance his lightsaber through the control panel on Vader’s chest—
That was the key! That was the reason for Vader’s antique style—to protect his center, as Grievous had been forced to do.
If he could only get to that control panel …
The two craft lifted off into smoke and withering night, spiraling up through resuming enemy fire toward Kachirho’s midlevel balconies. In the transport’s cramped cockpit with Cudgel, Filli, and Chewbacca—wedged into his seat, his head grazing the ceiling—Starstone clenched her white-knuckled hands on the shaking arms of the acceleration chair.
She couldn’t bring herself to lift her gaze to the viewports, for fear of what sights might greet her.
As if reading her mind, Cudgel said: “You can’t save an entire planet, kid. And it’s not like you didn’t try.”
Chewbacca reinforced the remark with a gutsy bass rumble, repeatedly slamming his huge hands down on the transport’s control yoke for emphasis.
“The Wookiees knew that their days of freedom were numbered,” Cudgel translated. “Kashyyyk will only be the first nonhuman world to be enslaved.”
Chewbacca threw the weary transport through a sudden evasive turn, nearly spilling everyone from their chairs. Through the viewport, Starstone caught a glimpse of Vader’s black shuttle, tumbling toward the ground. Firewalling the throttle, Chewbacca clawed for altitude, barely escaping the flames of the crashed shuttle’s mushrooming fireball.
Archyr’s voice issued through the cockpit enunciators as the drop ship appeared in the starboard panel of the viewport. “Close call!”
Growling irritably, Chewbacca ran a fast systems check.
“Tail singed,” Cudgel told Archyr through the comlink. “But everything else is intact.”
The drop ship remained in view to starboard.
“Half the balcony fell with the shuttle,” Archyr continued. “There isn’t much room to put down, even if you’re still fool enough to risk it. Whatever Olee has in mind, she’d better be quick about it.”
Cudgel swiveled to her. “You got that?”
She nodded as the ravaged balcony came into view, in worse shape than she had feared. Most of the rim was gone, and the few areas that still clung to the trunk of the wroshyr had been holed and crisped by turbolaser bolts. The bodies of Wookiees and stormtroopers sprawled in the spreading flames.
“I don’t see any sign of Shryne or Vader,” Archyr said over the comlink.
“Turbos could have killed them—” Cudgel started when Starstone cut him off.
“No. I would know.”
Chewbacca directed a yodeling bray at her.
“He believes you,” Cudgel translated.
Starstone leaned toward Chewbacca. “You think you can set us down?”
Chewbacca lowed dubiously, then nodded. Feathering the repulsorlift lever, he began to cheat the transport closer to the wroshyr. The craft was meters from landing when, without warning, what remained of the wooden tier sheared away from the massive trunk, taking several lower tiers with it as it disintegrated and fell.
Starstone sucked in her breath as Chewbacca pulled the ship sharply away from the bole. Half out of her chair, she focused her gaze on the cave-like opening to the tree’s dimly lighted interior and stretched out with the Force.
“They’re inside! I can feel them.”
Filli pulled her back into her chair. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Archyr’s voiced barked through the enunciator. “Gunships approaching.”
Cudgel forced her to look at him. “What would Shryne want you to do?”
She didn’t have to think about it. Blowing out her breath, she said: “Chewbacca, get us out of this.”
Relieved sighs came from Filli and Cudgel, a melancholy rumble from the Wookiee, who lifted the transport’s nose and accelerated.
“Steer clear of the lake,” Archyr warned. Again the drop ship came alongside, warding off strikes from in-rushing Imperial gunships. “We’ve only got a narrow escape vector, north-northwest.”
Dodging fire, the two ships raced into a burnt-orange sunset and climbed for the stars, mingling with scores of escaping ferries and cargo haulers. Turbolaser bolts rained down from ships in orbit, and across the darkening curve of the planet, fires raged.
Lowing in anguish and pounding one giant fist on the instrument panel, Chewbacca pointed to a bright burning in the canopy.
“Rwookrrorro,” Cudgel said. “Chewbacca’s tree-village.”
The stars were just losing their shimmer when the communications suite toned. Filli routed the transmission through the cockpit speakers.
“Glad to see you’ve come to your senses,” Jula said. “Is Roan with either of you?”
“Negative, Jula,” Filli said sadly.
Save for bursts of static, the enunciator remained silent for a long moment; then Jula’s voice returned. “After Alderaan, there was nothing I could say …” Her words trailed off, but she wasn’t finished. “None of us is out of this yet, anyway. Vader or whoever’s in charge has Interdictor cruisers parked in orbit. No ships have been able to jump to hyperspace.”
“Does the Drunk Dancer have enough firepower to take on the cruiser?” Cudgel asked.
“Filli,” Jula said, “inform whoever asked that question that I’m not about to go to guns with a Detainer CC-twenty-two-hundred.”
As the transport reached the edge of Kashyyyk’s envelope, magnified views of local space showed hundreds of ships trapped in the artificial gravity well generated by the Interdictor’s powerful projectors. Interspersed among the ensnared vessels drifted the blackened husks of Separatist warships that had been there since the end of the war.
“Too bad we can’t start up one of those Sep destroyers,” Cudgel lamented. “They have guns enough to deal with that cruiser.”
Starstone and Filli looked at each other.
“We might know a way,” h
e said.
On Kashyyyk, rapacious fires held night at bay. The shadows of running figures crisscrossed the ground. Spilled blood shone glossy black, as black as the charred bark of the wroshyr trees.
Safe inside their plastoid shells an occupying force of stormtroopers rappelled into the burning forests, flushing fleeing Wookiees back into the open, out onto the debris-strewn landing platform, the shore of the lake, the public spaces between the tree clusters that made up Kachirho.
Imperial war machines closed in from all sides; speeders and swift boats roaring up onto the sandy banks, gunships coiling down from the treetops, Victory-class Destroyers descending from the stars, their wedge-shaped armored hulls outlined by bright running lights.
Driven from tree-city and forest, the Wookiees found themselves surrounded by companies of troopers. Male and female alike, the largest were stunned into submission or killed. And yet the Wookiees continued to fight, even the youngest among them, and often with only tooth and nail, tearing scores of troopers limb from limb before succumbing to blasterfire.
Not all of Kachirho’s tens of thousands were rounded up, but more than enough to satisfy the Empire’s current needs. Should more be needed, the troopers would know where to look for them.
Herded to the center of the landing platform with countless others, Tarfful raised his long arms above his head and loosed a mournful, stentorian roar at the heavens.
Kashyyyk had fallen.
Shryne’s slashing strike to Vader’s lower left leg, owing as much to luck as to skill, released another shower of sparks.
Vader’s enraged response was Shryne’s only assurance that he was fighting a living being. Whatever had happened to Vader, by accident or volition, he had to be more flesh-and-blood than cyborg, or he wouldn’t have raged or been able to call on the Force with such intensity.
High up in the smoke-filled latticelike room, they stood facing each other on a suspension bridge that linked two fully enclosed walkways, the gloom cut by shafts of explosive light from the continuing attack on Kachirho.
Shryne’s determination to thrust his lightsaber into the control box Vader wore on his chest had forced the Sith to adopt a more defensive style that had left his limbs vulnerable. Throughout the fight that had taken them up the room’s wooden ramps, Vader had kept his crimson blade straight out in front of him, manipulating it deftly with wrists only, elbows pressed tightly to his sides. Only when Shryne left him no choice did he shuffle his feet or leap.